Paper Title
FOSTERING RESILIENCE: THE IMPACT OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY INTERVENTION ON WAR-AFFECTED ADOLESCENTS

Abstract
Despite the growing calls for peace and accelerated attempts at peace- building initiatives, many regions in the world are besieged by conflict and war. Children in these unstable environments experience substantial psychological morbidities and symptoms. Given these influences, numerous interventions have been developed to enhance the resilience of children and adolescents living in war-torn countries. However, most have adopted a disease model that portrays mental health symptoms as the main problem that need to be treated, rather than taking a proactive approach that emphasizes long-term social and emotional positive functioning as would be suggested by a positive psychology stance. This presentation will present a new study that evaluated the effects of a positive-psychology interventionon adolescents exposed for a lengthy period of time to war-related stressful events as a result of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Participants were 2,228 adolescents from four schools in southern Israel. Schoolswere randomly assigned to intervention and control conditions. The intervention group participants presented a significant reduction in mental health symptoms, improved subjective well-being, and higher motivation for conflict resolution, compassion toward the Palestinians and hopes for peace, whereas the control group participants showed worsening trends in these measurements. This presentation will underscore the contribution of positive-psychology interventions to adolescents in war-affected regions and to the development of humility, compassion, and the desire for peace, all of which are vital determinants for the promotion of the broader well-being of children, communities, and nations. Keywords - Resilience, School, Positive Psychology, Political Violence, Adolescents