Drawing on resilience: piloting the utility of the Kinetic Family Drawing to measure resilience in children of HIV-positive mothers

In this article we describe how using a visual, child-friendly measure of resilience in a randomised control trial (RCT), the Kgolo Mmogo (KM) project, resulted in representative insights on resilience in a mother-child relationship where the mother is HIV-positive. We used the existing psychological method Kinetic Family Drawing (KFD) to measure resilience of young children in the qualitative phase of the concurrent mixed method RCT as the children represent cultural groups for whom standardized measures have not been developed. We use the case example of baseline KM assessment data of 6 year olds (n = 11; 3 female, 8 male). The results of the study demonstrate that the visual and qualitative data from children (KFD) added to quantitative information obtained from mothers (Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale, VABS). Additional information from the KFD had interpretation value for VABS scores and provided a child's perspective regarding resilience. Contrasting information from the KFD problematized mothers' perspectives as indicated in the VABS. The absence of significant information in KFD results regarding VABS sub-domains indicates differences in the cultural/contextual conceptualization of resilience. This exploratory study indicates initial support for the cross-cultural utility of the KFD to measure resilience in young children faced with adversity.