Effectiveness of the Resilience Builder Program® in private practice and school settings

Children of color from economically marginalized communities face significant barriers to accessing mental health treatment. Therefore, it is critical to identify interventions that are effective across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. This study examined the effectiveness of the Resilience Builder Program® (RBP), a manualized intervention for children with psychosocial deficits across a cohort of predominantly racial/ethnic minoritized children from lower-SES families and predominantly White children from higher-SES families. 95 children ages 9–12 participated in the RBP: 44 from elementary schools in economically marginalized communities and 51 from a private practice. Results showed comparable outcomes between samples in resiliency, mastery, social skills, functional communication, and executive functioning. Group differences were seen only with emotional reactivity, with youth from the private practice setting displaying significantly greater improvement than youth from the school setting (p = .018, ηp2 = .087). Findings suggest equivalent effectiveness of the RBP when comparing a sample of primarily White youth from high-SES families to racially/ethnically minoritized youth from low-SES families. This illustrates that enhancing resilience skills equips economically marginalized children to adapt to and overcome challenges. Trial registration number (TRN) and date of registration: NCT06578026; Registered 8/27/2024.