Conceptual Framework for Understanding Child Vulnerability As the Risk of Harm to a Child’s Well-Being

This conceptual paper focuses on ‘children at risk’. For those children who are more exposed to risks than their peers, the term 'child vulnerability' is being used. It is important to reduce risk in the lives of children. However, children should not be seen as an object of concern, but as active agents capable of preventing and managing risks in their lives themselves. Recently, also resilience - successful adaptation or better than expected outcomes in the face of certain risk – is gaining importance in research, practice, and policy emphasizing children’s strengths next to their weaknesses.

Aim of the paper is to introduce a new conceptual framework for understanding child vulnerability as the risk of harm to a child’s well-being in relation to his/her resilience.

This framework stems from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development, Ungar, Ghazinour and Richter's social-ecological model of resilience and previous multidisciplinary knowledge on the most common vulnerability/risk and resilience/protective factors. It can be considered a step forward from existing risk-centric conceptualisations and previous conceptualisations linking child vulnerability and resilience, as in the proposed framework they are considered a continuum.