Doing a Resilience Project: Transforming Lives through Practical Strategies for Mental Well-Being Using ‘The Resilience Doughnut’ Model

In today’s fast-paced, high-pressure world, mental well-being isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. But building resilience, the ability to bounce back and grow from challenges, doesn’t happen by chance. It happens when we make it intentional. That’s where a Resilience Project comes in — and when guided by ‘The Resilience Doughnut’ Model, it becomes a life-shaping experience.

What Is A Resilience Project?

A Resilience Project is a structured, strengths-based initiative designed to help individuals — especially young people — understand, build, and strengthen their capacity to cope with adversity. It could be a school program, a community workshop, or even a personal development series in a therapeutic setting.

At its core, it’s not about fixing what is ‘wrong’. It’s about activating what is already strong.

Why ‘The Resilience Doughnut’ Model?

The Resilience Doughnut, developed by Clinical Psychologist Dr Lyn Worsley, provides the perfect framework. It identifies seven key factors of life that help build resilience. In the Child & Adolescent Model, these factors are:

1. the Parent factor – safe, secure caregiver relationships
2. the Skill factor – learning and attaining a hobbies, talent or and activity
3. the Family & Identity factor – sense of identity through the family
4. the Education factor – supportive schools and learning environments
5. the Peer factor – peers who connect through shared interests
6. the Community factor – belonging to something wider and bigger
7. the Money factor – attitude toward money with purpose and contribution (especially for teenagers and adults)

The Resilience Doughnut model shows that if someone has just three strong areas, they’re much more likely to thrive in their life, even in the face of adversity.

What Happens in a Resilience Project?

A Resilience Project that is typical includes a mix of reflective, creative and interactive activities that allow participants to:

• Identify which of the seven areas are already active in their lives
• Strengthen weaker areas through a flow on effect from the stronger areas
• Explore stories of resilience (their own stories and the stories of others)
• Set goals for nurturing connections and confidence
• Recognise and name the resources they already have

It might include art, journaling, group discussions, community service or personal storytelling. The power lies in making the invisible visible — seeing support systems, strengths, and sparks of hope in new light.

Real Change, Real Lives

When you do a Resilience Project with The Resilience Doughnut model, transformation simply happens. Not always in dramatic, cinematic ways — but in quiet, consistent shifts:

• A child realises their guitar teacher is a key positive influence
• A teenager reconnects with a grandparent and feels less alone
• A school team starts celebrating not just performance, but progress
• A young adult starts believing they are more than their anxiety

These are the moments that build the foundation of mental well-being — relational, sustainable and real.

Why It Matters

Mental health strategies often focus on symptoms and struggles. But The Resilience Doughnut model flips the script. It asks:

• • Where is this person strong?
  • What relationships are already working?
  • What can we grow from — right now?

A Resilience Project makes this model come alive in schools, families, workplaces and communities.

A Final Thought

You don’t have to be a psychologist to run a Resilience Project. You just need a framework, a bit of creativity and the belief that resilience is something we can build — one connection at a time. So let’s start focusing less on what’s missing and more on what’s already working.

That’s where transformation begins.