The value of transformative youth-adult relationships is that they offer the most vulnerable youth a resource for well-being. When these relationships facilitate access to pro-social expressions of personal talents, the result is likely to be adaptive behaviour among youth who face multiple risk factors. In this sense, these young people’s resilience is the result of the quality of their engagement with adults and not a personal trait. This shift to a social ecological understanding of resilience avoids blaming young people who resort to maladaptive behaviour to survive. Instead, we see that it is the ability of their families, schools, and communities to make relationships with adults available that determines children’s success.