Proactive Resilience

Proactive resilience starts with the understanding that when early-stage cries for help go unanswered, they ripple through communities and organizations, leaving damage in their wake.

In order to build wellness and strength, it is vital to focus our attention and resources on responding to and supporting individuals in need. Data clearly spells out the areas of attention and the impact: faster response means better outcomes and safer communities.

Early-stage crises – namely: mental wellbeing, sexual misconduct, and substance dependency – are incredibly common across the United States and around the world. Worldwide, depression and anxiety cost 12 billion working days & $1 trillion annually (World Health Organization). Intimate partner violence is experienced by 41% of American women and 26% of American men (Leemis et al., 2022), while 81% of women & 43% of men experience sexual harassment and assault (National Sexual Violence Resource Center). 18% of Americans struggle with substance abuse, and 62% of Americans have a close friend or family member dealing with substance abuse (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).

Left unaddressed, these crises erode the fabric of our communities. When these situations and their resulting cries for help go unmet, they fester and in rare situations, between 6 and 24 months later, they can manifest as mass violence. Every victim of mass violence is a tragedy. At the same time, thousands of tragedies emanate from these situations. On average, suicide claims five hundred times as many lives in the United States as mass violence; suicide is eclipsed by the death count from overdose and excessive alcohol use between five and six times over. This does not consider the countless first- and second-order impacts.

When proactive steps are taken to meet these cries for help and address them, 94% of all cases are resolved without need for escalation to law enforcement. Yet individuals in need can rarely determine their own concerns; the stress that accompanies crisis makes it challenging to think clearly. Emotional blindspots typically lead to underestimations of severity, for both individuals in crisis and those closest to them who are best equipped to recognize the concern. These same issues impact friends or family members, who often also don’t know the right questions to ask.

Meanwhile, the focus on extreme incidents distracts attention from these root crises. Dr. Christopher Chabris and Dr. Daniel Simons, the researchers behind the 2010 book Invisible Gorilla, show that when we fixate on one detail we often miss what’s right in front of us. Proactive resilience seeks to reduce a wide range of tragedies, including but not limited to mass violence, by focusing on the key drivers of these situations.