Building Resilience: Helping Emerging Adults Cope During the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic

The rapid spread of COVID-19 led to, among other things, confusion in news coverage and public health safety. In academe, university leaders were pressured to quickly construct new plans for holding university classes while integrating the safety protocols required by government officials. Though this sudden shift may have been necessary, it also disrupted the biopsychosocial needs, developmental norms, and milestones of emerging adults on college campuses. Current research on emerging adults’ biopsychosocial needs during COVID-19 is scant, and research efforts may have been diverted due to the suddenness of campus shutdowns. Social work clinicians nonetheless need a theoretical framework that primarily focuses on emerging adults’ needs during and post pandemic. Therapeutic settings create platforms for emerging adults to share their stories and for clinicians to understand their clients’ lived experiences during a pandemic such as COVID-19. An awareness of how the experience of shared trauma can affect the therapeutic relationship is crucial to the wellbeing of both client and clinician. This composite case study illustrates a treatment intervention constructed from resilience theory that included narrating what unfolded, learning emotional regulation, building sources of support, and making meaning of the experience. The framework in this paper suggests that resilience theory can be an effective therapeutic approach for emerging adults during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and recommends further attention to the role of social workers in higher education.