The theme this year was: "I Bend But I Don't Break: Exploring Street-Connected Children's Resilience".

Every year, the Conference brings together researchers, academics, NGOs and CSC members.

We had a packed agenda featuring distinguished panellists, who illustrated the importance of understanding resilience for street-connected children and enthused participants to use resilience-based approaches in their research and practice.

Our agenda included:

A keynote by Professor Linda Theron on "What can South Africa adolescents teach service providers about championing youth resilience?"

A panel on "Understanding and experiences of resilience on the streets" featuring Dr Anita Schrader McMillan, Dr Wayne Shand, Aldred Ochaya (who joined us remotely from Uganda!) and Chaired by Dr Andy West.

A choice of three workshops:

• Streets of Resilience: Methods and Insights from Guatemala City with a screening of 'Los Niños de La Terminal' led by Dr Andrew Stevenson and Dr Jeremy Oldfield.
• Using local learning and innovation to develop resilience-based approaches with street-connected children: Building with Bamboo led by Dr Ruth Edmonds.
• Negotiating space, place and identity: Understanding street-connected children's 'resilience' to build adaptive capacity and resilience led by Dr Harriot Beazley.

A panel on "Resilience and sexual abuse and exploitation in the context of the street" featuring Helen Veitch, Dr Vicky Johnson, Dr Renata Coimbra (who joined us remotely from Brazil!) and Chaired by Professor Lorraine van Blerk.

Professor Lorraine van Blerk, Chair of the CSC Research Expert Forum, opened the Conference with a warm introduction on 'resilience', and introduced the Chief Executive of Consortium for Street Children, Caroline Ford.

Caroline Ford's opening remarks touched on the importance of research as an instrumental tool "to shine the light on the things people need to know about". She also noted the significance of research to make children who are rendered invisible, visible, to decision-makers.

Her defining remark was the need for street-connected children to have access to a warm "parent figure" in their lives to enable better feelings of resilience from more areas including: education, faith and culture.

Professor Linda Theron: "A social parent is as important as being a biological parent".

She concluded with the need to listen to young people and asking them what matters most for their resilience.

This panel was chaired by Dr Andy West, and explored how we can understand and approach resilience in relation to street-connections and street-based experiences.

Alfred Ochaya, joining remotely from Uganda, noted that music, dance, art, drama, and sport were all chosen by Ugandan street children as themes under which they could explore resilience.

Workshop One by Dr Andrew Stevenson and Dr Jeremy Oldfield shed light on: "Streets of Resilience: Methods and Insights from Guatemala City" with a screening of 'Los Ninos de La Terminal, a documentary about resilience and education in Guatemala.

Workshop Two by Dr Ruth Edmonds focussed on "Using local learning and innovation to develop resilience-based approaches with street-connected children: Building Bamboo".

Workshop Three led by Dr Harriot Beazley focussed on "Negotiating space, place and identity: Understanding street-connected children's 'resilience' to build adaptive capacity and resilience".

This panel was chaired by Prof Lorraine van Blerk, and explored factors that can support street-connected children’s resilience in the face of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, and the unique risks and opportunities for resilience to sexual abuse and sexual exploitation in the context of the street.

Helen Veitch: "The streets or public spaces are also a place children can find support when sexually abused".

Lizet Vlamings, Advocacy and Research Manager at Consortium for Street Children, delivered final remarks reiterating how much we can learn about resilience, given that it is such an incredibly complex concept that needs to be conceptualised and operationalized based on local context.

A common thread throughout all the sessions was resilience is not an exclusively individual phenomenon, it is a matter of community. It is absolutely crucial that we recognise the importance of relationships, services and resources in defining and developing a child’s resilience.