Beyond risk: resilience portfolios and youth mental health

BACKGROUND: Given concerns about the mental health of young people, there has been a growing body of research aimed at understanding strengths, resilience, and protective factors. The current study utilizes latent profile analysis to examine different combinations of strengths. Group differences on demographics, social determinants of health (SDoH), and mental health indices are examined across the identified latent classes. METHODS: Project Lift Up is a longitudinal, national study of youth and young adults designed to understand bystander behaviors for self-directed violence. 4,981 adolescents and young adults aged 13-22 years were recruited online between June 13, 2022 - October 30, 2023. Three additional waves of data were collected, approximately 6 months apart: Wave 2 (collected between January 13, 2023 - February 26, 2024); Wave 3 (June 13, 2023 - November 19, 2024); and Wave 4 (December 15, 2023 - May 8, 2025). The qualifying longitudinal cohort, defined as completing baseline and either the 6- or 12-month surveys, was 3,360. A total of 2,049 participants completed all four survey waves and are the analytic sample for the current paper (61% of the qualifying cohort). RESULTS: Latent profile analysis identified seven strength profiles: Despondent (5.5%), Isolated (14.2%), Pessimistic (14.3%), Support-Focused (26.8%), Self-Reliant (8.9%), Multi-faceted Strengths (23.8%), and Resilient Activists (6.3%). Profiles differed in both overall strength levels and configurations across regulatory, interpersonal, meaning making, and environmental domains. Depressive symptoms and self-directed violence were highest in the Despondent and Pessimistic profiles and lowest in the Self-Reliant and Multi-faceted Strengths profiles, with Resilient Activists showing intermediate risk. Despite high strengths, Resilient Activists experienced uniquely elevated SDoH adversity, including discrimination, food insecurity, and structural hardship. In contrast, Self-Reliant and Multi-faceted Strengths profiles showed the lowest SDoH risk across domains. Females, sexual-minority, and gender-minority participants were overrepresented in profiles with poorer mental health and greater adversity and underrepresented in the most robust strength profiles. CONCLUSION: Practitioners should incorporate assessment of strengths portfolios when working with young people. Programs to prevent mental health problems, including suicide and self-injury, should include specific strengths-based components across the four domains of the Resilience Portfolio Model - regulatory, interpersonal, meaning making and environmental.