Many people experience chronic health conditions and lead fulfilling and satisfying lives. It can be a scary time for students if they don’t know how to navigate their life within post-secondary or if a change in their health status means they no longer have the life they used to have.
These feelings of loss, while important to acknowledge, do not negate that we can approach supports and student life with a strength-based approach. Hope and optimism can help students:
- Feel empowered and in control of their lives
- Help realize they deserve advocating for themselves
- Understand their capacity for resiliency
A study by Askew et al. (2017) on how young adults with cystic fibrosis transition into adulthood noted that:
“Despite having a life-limiting disease, [young people with cystic fibrosis] are functioning well in their lives, gaining independence, undertaking further education and employment, forming relationships, and planning to undertake parenthood.” (Askew et al., 2017, p 123)
How can we embed hope, optimism, and empowerment without alienating the student?
- Adopt a strength-based approach where a student’s strengths are also acknowledged, not just their challenges
- Celebrate any type of progress in their health, academic, and social journey
- Encourage and model self-compassionate behaviours such as being kind to yourself, not pushing the limits of your body when not feeling well, and setting boundaries
- Share stories of students who have been able to navigate post-secondary with a chronic health condition
A strength-based approach, compared to a deficit-based view, focuses on how the strengths of an individual can promote behavioural change. In this context, it looks at how our personal or interpersonal strengths and values can help with chronic disease management. Studies have shown that strength-based approaches improve patient outcomes in clinical settings and improve self efficacy (Halili et al., 2025).
A strength-based worksheet developed by CICMH can be found in the appendix of this toolkit. This worksheet asks students questions about their strengths and hopes in order to reflect on what can help with self-management.
