What exactly is that quality of resilience that carries people, organizations, and communities through
traumatic times? As a construct, resilience is built on the underlying assumption that the individual or organization has undergone a situation of ‘significant adversity’ and has adapted positively, quickly returns to or increases in performance and psychological wellbeing (Riolli and Savicki 2003). Resilient systems have the capacity to recover structure and function after disturbance, to bounce back. A highly resilient community or system may be completely disrupted by disturbance but quickly returns to a balance among the elements. These self-righting tendencies are evident in all living systems (Cicchetti, Rogosch et al. 1993; Werner 1995).