A major theoretical framework underlying CHANGES’ research, technical assistance and professional development activities is Spencer’s Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST). This model presupposes five components: Net Vulnerability Level, Net Stress Engagement, Reactive Coping Strategies, Stable Coping Strategies: Emergent Identities, and Life Stage Outcomes.

Please click on each component of the framework for more detailed information

Net vulnerability level represents the balance between risk and protective factors. Examples of protective factors include parental monitoring and high academic performance. Risk factors include poverty, membership in a disfavored racial or ethnic group, gender and community or school violence. Net vulnerability level represents the net difference in the effects of protective and risk factors, respectively. They can potentially offset each other when risks or protective factors outweigh each other. That is, protective factors that contribute to individual resiliency may help a child to overcome such potential risk factors as race and gender.

Net stress engagement level represents the balance between perceived challenges and supports.  In contrast to the net vulnerability level, net stress engagement variables focus on individual perceptions of risk and protection. For example, two siblings raised in the same home may both be exposed to community violence. One may experience the violence as exciting while the other experiences the violence as dangerous. Thus, the emphasis is placed on whether or not an individual perceives an intended support as supportive or protective. Conversely, emphasis is placed on whether an individual perceives a risk factor as stressful or risky.

Reactive coping strategies include a balance between adaptive solutions to perceived problems or challenges such as problem-solving and help-seeking and maladaptive problem-solving strategies such as avoidance and aggression. The word “reactive” is intended to indicate that the coping strategies have been employed in response to a specific problem or challenge experienced “in the moment.”

Stable coping strategies represent coping strategies that are not necessarily reactive nor problem-specific and may be either positive or negative and manifested as internalized emergent identities. For instance, exposure to risks such as experience with violence may be chronic or cumulative. Accordingly, certain coping behaviors may be employed so consistently that they become coping tendencies that are employed whether or not they are appropriate to the problem or challenge. In fact, they may be employed so consistently that they represent emergent identities.

Life-stage coping outcomes represents the diverse outcomes (both positive and negative) that can be experienced based on coping behaviors and emergent identities that, in turn, influence coping behaviors. As the PVEST framework is recursive, life-stage outcomes during one period of development can, in turn, become risk or protective factors at a subsequent level of development. For instance, a student who has performed poorly in school and, thus, disengaged from school may experience improvements in academic performance or coping skills. As a result, this student may become more resilient in subsequent stages of development.

For further reading on PVEST, we suggest the following publications:

Spencer, M.B., Cunningham, M., & Swanson, D.P. (1995). Identity as coping:
Adolescent African American males' adaptive responses to high risk
environments. In H.W. Harris, H.C. Blue, & E.H. Griffith (Eds.),
Racial and ethnic identity (pp. 31 52). New York: Routledge.

Spencer, M.B., Dupree, D., & Hartmann, T. (1997). A phenomenological variant
of ecological systems theory (PVEST): A self-organization perspective in
context. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 817-833.

Spencer, M. B. (2006). Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory:
Development of Diverse Groups In W. Damon and R. Lerner (Eds.), (6th
Edition) Handbook of Child Psychology, vol. 1, (Chap. 15, Theory
Volume) (pp. 829-893). New York: Wiley Publishers.

Spencer, M. B., Harpalani, V., Cassidy, E., Jacobs, C., Donde, S., Goss,
T.,Miller, M.-M., Charles, N., Wilson, S. (2006). Understanding
vulnerability and resilience from a normative development perspective:
Implications for racially and ethnically diverse youth (Chap. 16). In D.
Chicchetti and E. Cohen (Ed.) Handbook of Developmental
Psychopathology, Vol. 1, pp. 627-672. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishers.