The Impact of Vicarious Trauma

As a former State trainer for the Virginia Department of Social Services, I have had an opportunity to speak with many social workers who are working in the field. They reported a fear of burning out and hardening their hearts to protect themselves from the impact of vicarious trauma. This work can lead to depersonalization of working with children and families that a particular professional is working with, resulting in a lower quality of care as the professional is unable to empathize with that child and provide them with proper support (Tehrani, 2011). Some professionals reported physical symptoms such as headaches and nausea from the worry and reflected trauma of certain cases. One study reported that social workers frequently vomited on their way into work because of the emotional effects of their work (Pack, 2011).

It is critical for the administration of any agency or business who care for children, adolescents, and families in crisis, to have an awareness of the impact vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, sometimes reflected as compassion fatigue. One of the ways to measure this impact is by asking staff to complete a self-report utilizing the Professional Quality of Life Scale (PROQOL) Version 5 (2009) – Self Score. This is a valid instrument for measuring: Compassion Satisfaction; Burnout, and Secondary Traumatic Stress. Some of the public mental health agencies and social service agencies have established a “mental health day” in addition to other common sick days.

• “Trauma-Informed Care is a strengths-based framework that is grounded in an understanding of and responsiveness to the impact of trauma, that emphasizes physical, psychological, and emotional safety for both providers and survivors, and that creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.” (Hopper, Bassuk, and Olivet 2009, p. 133).
•  “A trauma-informed child welfare system is one in which all parties involved recognize and respond to the varying impact of traumatic stress on children, caregivers, and those who have contact with the system. Programs and organizations within the system infuse this knowledge awareness and skills into their organizational cultures, policies, and practices. They act in collaboration, using the best available science to facilitate and support resiliency and recovery.” (Hendricks, Conradi, & Wilson, 2011, p.189).
• Social Workers, especially those who work with abused children, are some of the most stressed professionals and are particularly susceptible to vicarious trauma (Braithwaite, 2007; Coffey et al., 2004; Dillenburger, 2004). Needing to invest emotionally in each case, combined with high caseloads and insufficient recovery time can also cause compassion fatigue. With this in mind, supervisors are also impacted by vicarious trauma as they try to support their staff in addition to hearing the stories of the abuse and neglect cases multiplied from their worker’s caseloads. Experiencing some of the worst aspects of human nature on a daily basis and over time can have a variety of effects on a professional including low self-esteem, emotional numbing, cynicism and a loss of confidence (VanDeusen and Way, 2006; Pogue and Yarborough, 2003).
•  If the quality of care of one professional fall, it can place greater pressure on other members of the team and greater risk of vicarious trauma among those other members of the team who may have to increase their caseloads to help the struggling team member. This leads to staff turnover which also places additional stress on the remaining staff until that position is filled. Therefore, interagency relationships and communication may also be affected by vicarious trauma (Horwath and Tidbury, 2009). A high staff turnover can bring less experienced professionals into high stress and demanding positions, increasing the likely damage that those situations may cause the professional (Horwath and Tilbury, 2009).

Braithwaite (2007) argues that the current culture of accountability and performance management is incompatible with social care and that this could be adding considerable stress to professionals. Munro (2012) highlighted the development of a blame culture saying that social workers were expected to perform their role faultlessly and this means that when mistakes did occur there was a disproportionate amount of criticism, putting, even more, pressure on them. Both Braithwaite and Munro highlight the importance of supporting professionals so that there are fewer mistakes caused by vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue.

References

Baird, S. and Jenkins, S. R. (2003) Vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout in sexual assault and domestic violence agency staff. Violence and Victims, 18(1): 71- 86.

Braithwaite, R. (2007) Feeling the pressure?: Workplace stress and how to avoid it. Community Care,1654: 28-29.

Coffey, M., Dugdill, L. and Tattersall, A. (2004) Stress in social services: mental well-being, constraints, and job satisfaction. British Journal of Social Work, 34(5): 735-746

Conrad, D. (2011) Secondary trauma, and caring professionals: understanding it’s impact and taking steps to protect yourself. The Link, 20(2): 1-5.