Explain protective factors and decision making skills and evaluate how they build resilience and support personal health

What this dot point is asking

This dot point asks you to explain protective factors, resilience and decision making skills, and to evaluate how they help young people manage risk and protect their health. It is the counterpart to risk taking: where one topic explains the hazards, this one explains the strengths and supports that reduce harm and build wellbeing.

Risk and protective factors

Health Studies pairs risk factors with protective factors. Risk factors increase the likelihood of harm, while protective factors reduce it and support wellbeing. Both operate at the level of the individual, the family, the peer group, the school and the wider community. Analysing an issue means identifying the balance: when protective factors outweigh risk factors, young people cope better even under pressure.

Examples of protective factors

Protective factors span several levels and reinforce one another.

• Individual: self esteem, problem solving skills, optimism, emotional regulation and a sense of purpose.
• Family: warm and consistent relationships, clear boundaries and open communication.
• Peer and school: positive friendships, belonging, supportive teachers and engagement with learning.
• Community: safe neighbourhoods, sport and recreation, cultural connection and accessible health services.

A young person with several of these is better placed to manage stress and resist harmful pressure. The course wants you to see that protective factors are not only personal traits but also conditions that families, schools and communities can strengthen.

Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to adapt to, cope with and recover from adversity, stress or setback. It is not a fixed trait that some people simply have and others lack; it develops through experience and through the protective factors around a person. Supportive relationships, opportunities to practise coping, and a sense of belonging all build resilience over time. A resilient young person still experiences difficulty but is more able to bounce back and maintain wellbeing.

Decision making skills

Because Unit 2 is framed around risk, decision making is central. Good decision making turns knowledge and strengths into safer choices in the moment. A useful process involves identifying the situation and choices, weighing the likely consequences and their seriousness, considering personal values and supports, choosing an option, and reflecting afterwards. Skills such as assertiveness, refusal skills and knowing how and when to seek help are especially important when peer pressure or substances are involved. These skills can be taught and practised, which is why they feature in school health programs.

Help seeking

A particular decision making skill is help seeking, which protects wellbeing when difficulties become hard to manage alone. Young people may avoid seeking help because of stigma, cost or not knowing where to go. Protective conditions include trusted adults, accessible and youth friendly services, and clear messages that seeking help is a strength. Improving help seeking is a common goal of youth mental health initiatives.

Evaluating strategies that build resilience

To evaluate a program, ask whether it strengthens protective factors across several levels, whether it builds genuine skills rather than only giving information, whether it reaches the young people at greatest risk, and whether it shows measurable change in wellbeing or behaviour. Programs that build connection, skills and access tend to be more effective than those relying on warnings alone, which connects back to the limits of education only approaches.

Applying this in assessment

In responses, distinguish risk from protective factors, explain resilience as something that can be built, and apply decision making skills to a realistic scenario. Where you evaluate a program, judge it against whether it strengthens protective factors and reaches those in need. Examiners reward answers that treat resilience as developed through conditions and skills, not as a fixed personal quality.

Protective factors, resilience and decision making complete the personal health picture of Unit 2, showing how young people can manage the risks studied earlier and setting up the population level focus of Unit 3.