Resilience is a dynamic process that refers to the capacity of individuals to prevent, overcome, and even thrive following the experience of challenging events [1]. Resilience outcomes can be captured through functioning in different domains, but here, we focus on emotional resilience, which can reflect the presence of an adaptive outcome (well-being, life satisfaction) or the absence of a negative outcome (mental illness) [2] following the experience of stress (internal or external), which can range from adverse childhood events to ongoing chronic stressors. Resilience can be conceptualized as an individual characteristic (eg, grit, perseverance, determination), but it also includes opportunities to harness and navigate access to culturally relevant external resources (eg, contact seeking, participation in community groups) [3]. Although there is a growing body of literature measuring and tracking emotional resilience (good mental well-being and absence of psychopathology following stress) and the factors and resources that contribute toward it in adolescence [4,5] and young adulthood [6,7], there is notably less research on the nature of resilience and how and when it develops at even earlier stages of development such as preadolescent childhood. This phase of development is important because efforts to enhance resilience here have preventative potential; children’s emotional experiences are also changing, which may make them more receptive and amenable to acquiring, learning, and consolidating lifelong adaptive strategies for managing emotions.

A study of emotional resilience as it emerges across middle and late childhood into early adolescence and the factors that predict early resilience trajectories would be an invaluable addition to the field for several reasons. First, early signs of reduced emotional resilience could predict reduced well-being and increased mental health problems and their impact in youth, enabling us to identify those who are less well-equipped to manage the challenges and opportunities of adolescence—and in turn, across the lifespan. Second, understanding the factors contributing toward the development of emotional resilience could help with the development of preventative programs and the planning of resources to reduce negative outcomes across the lifespan. Finally, as resilience reflects “the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten system function, viability, or development,” it is likely that its nature and core components vary in childhood compared to adolescence and adulthood. More specifically, preadolescent childhood is a period when emotional experiences are becoming more complex, varied, and at times, more intense [8]. These age-based differences may mean that the factors contributing to resilience change between childhood and adolescence, as they begin to stabilize and consolidate. Yet, these more enriched experiences may also allow a more plastic period for children to learn and practice adaptive strategies for managing stronger, more intense emotional experiences.

A better understanding of emotional resilience in mid-to-late childhood would therefore allow us to propose developmentally sensitive theories of resilience. The Youth Resilience Unit is based at Queen Mary University of London—in the diverse and relatively economically deprived area of East London. The university has a commitment to its location and surrounding community, and it is an area that is underresearched; therefore, it has a focus in terms of understanding the development of resilience in this often challenging sociocultural environment. In the 2021 census, East London was found to be much more culturally diverse in relation to the whole of England and Wales, with a much higher proportion of Asian (32.6% vs 9.3%), Black (14.6% vs 4%), mixed (5.6% vs 2.9%), and other (5.1% vs 2.1%) ethnicities and significantly lower in those who identified as White (42.1% vs 81.7%) [9]. In terms of economic activity, East London also has higher levels of self-employment or no employment (10.1% vs 7.9%), students with no employment (9% vs 6.3%), unemployed (4.7% vs 2.8%), and with much lower proportion of retirees (8.6% vs 21.6%). Having a young and the most diverse population in the United Kingdom while also being historically underserved in research makes East London the perfect location for the timely addition of a new cohort study.

The Development of Emotional Resilience (DEER) study is a new (accelerated) longitudinal cohort of preadolescent children (aged 7-11 years at recruitment) residing in East London to address questions relating to (1) the early development of resilience, (2) differences across individuals in resilience trajectories, and (3) factors/resources that contribute toward resilience trajectories.

We have 3 primary objectives in the DEER study. These are to explore how preadolescent children growing up in deprived areas of London may operationalize resilience, evaluate whether there are differences in the development or trajectories of resilience among our target population, and understand what contributes to resilience pathways over time. Additionally, our research aims to better understand the psychometric properties of resilience measures used in a preadolescent sample and assess the feasibility of developing a longitudinal cohort study of preadolescent children in East London.

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Queen Mary University of London research ethics committee (QMERC22.251) on June 27, 2022. The study was prospectively registered in the International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number registry (ISRCTN14396374). Written assent from the children was obtained prior to any study procedures being conducted, and written consent was obtained from parents/carers if children were recruited via opt-in procedures. All participating schools gave written consent for participation via the school principals. To ensure anonymity, study data are stored in a deidentified format. Names and other identifying information (eg, addresses, contact details) are replaced by a unique participant ID number. To reduce the risk of disclosure, participant identifying information is stored separately from the research data, which will be saved on a secure server at the Youth Resilience Unit, hosted by Queen Mary University of London. To say thank you to the child’s class for taking part, we offer participation in an interactive science show organized by the Centre of the Cell, Queen Mary University of London. The show is aimed at children in primary schools and is educational and fun. Whether the show is offered at the school or the school attends the Centre of the Cell is decided by the school. We compensate parents who complete annual questionnaires £10 (US $13.74) each time.

Schools provided the team with students who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and the students who the teachers felt would struggle to complete measures in a group setting. During data collection visits, researchers provide further information about the DEER study to pupils, and pupils provide written assent before completing a battery of validated questionnaires. All assessments intended for the child to complete are done in the classroom, mainly on an electronic tablet or pen and paper depending on the task, in small groups but with privacy. As the baseline assessment took up to 4.5 hours to complete, site visits were often split up across multiple sessions. Detailed information was collected about the demographics as well as the social, personal, and community factors affecting resilience in children. Trained researchers were present throughout all sessions to explain procedures and answer questions. All baseline questionnaires were administered between October 2022 and December 2023. Follow-up will be conducted at least annually until the first term of the secondary school (where possible). Parents or carers complete a set of web-based questionnaires for each year their child is enrolled in the study, for which they received financial reimbursement in the form of e-vouchers worth £10 (US $13.74). Teachers are also asked to complete paper questionnaires for each pupil enrolled in the study and to describe the provision of mental health services at the school.

Resilience is the ability to overcome adverse events and experience positive outcomes. Although the development of emotional resilience has been explored in adolescence, there is a dearth of evidence on the nature of and development of resilience among preadolescent populations.

The DEER study aims to explore how preadolescent children define resilience, track the development of resilience, and asses the contributory factors to differences in resilience pathways across time. It is hoped that the results of our study will allow us to work on more developmentally sensitive theories of resilience and propose future interventions to reduce negative outcomes following adverse events in childhood. The core analysis of the study will focus on investigating the trajectories of resilience across time and exploring its links with mental and physical health and other child characteristics. However, as the planned analysis is highly flexible and responsive to changes in the field, it is not possible to speculate meaningfully about this here, but all analyses will be registered on the Open Science Framework website prior to any analysis being conducted.

We believe this is one of the first longitudinal cohort studies exploring the factors associated with the development of emotional resilience in primary school-age children. In our measures, we also assess multiple risk and protective factors from individual traits (including cognitive information processing and lifestyle factors) to social and community resources. We also employ mixed methods, including quantitative and qualitative data, as well as experimental methods in cognitive tasks.

This provides a unique opportunity to understand the factors involved in the early stages of how resilience emerges and develops as well as the impact of these various factors over time. Our sample is also notable in being one that includes children growing up in socioeconomically deprived and marginalized communities. These children are not only typically underrepresented in mental health research, but they may also face multiple chronic stressors (poverty, housing difficulties, discrimination) where resilience—individual traits and external resources—are especially relevant in navigating these daily challenges. The flexible nature of the cohort measures allows us to respond to early findings and new information or data in the field as this is published.

This study relies heavily on self-report from young children, and it is not always clear how reliable or valid this method is in children of this age. We have tried to balance this by including measures by teachers and parents. However, parents are notoriously difficult to engage in this process, and this may result in lower levels of data from parents. Teachers also may be less responsive due to their many responsibilities and limited time to complete assessments. The large number of child assessments may also cause participant fatigue, particularly in a school setting. This may lead to nonrandom missingness in the results.

The results of this study will be published in academic journals and presented at academic conferences throughout the life of the project. We will also use the Youth Resilience Unit and the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry social media accounts to further disseminate the research results. A brief debriefing report will be prepared for all participants, parents/carers, and schools, which will be circulated when the results have been prepared. Oral presentations of the key findings will also be offered to all participants, parents/carers, and schools.

All dissemination activities will draw on established research and clinical networks in our partners. Dissemination will be conducted with consideration of the safe data and safe statistical analysis protections. No individual level data will be published that could be linked back to a person or institution, and all output will be assessed to determine if there is a risk of disclosure through things such as single frequency counts in tables or identifying information in any qualitative fragments. In such cases, data will be censored, obscured, or changed to protect individual confidentiality. Where possible, any sensitive or difficult findings will be discussed with the participants or relevant institution if this is about a clinic or similar setting, prior to publication to avoid any inadvertent reputational harm or negative consequences of the findings being made public.