“I’m numb to funerals now…”: The impact of job-related trauma exposure on youth violence prevention street outreach workers.

Abstract

Similar to first responders, youth violence prevention street outreach workers, also known as streetworkers (SWs), are regularly exposed to and impacted by trauma in the context of their jobs. SWs are frontline workers responsible for engaging at-risk youth to reduce youth gang involvement and prevent, interrupt, and respond to incidents of community youth violence. This work results in SWs being exposed to trauma, yet little is known about how this chronic exposure affects their personal and professional lives. This study sought to answer this question by analyzing data from 37 in-depth, semistructured interviews with SWs from a large U.S. city. The results suggest that trauma affected this sample of SWs across emotional, behavioral, and social realms of functioning. SWs described feeling emotionally numb and psychologically distant. Some SWs reported engaging in substance use and high-risk behaviors, whereas others discussed feeling hypervigilant and burnt out. Socially, some SWs described the effects of job-related trauma exposure causing strain in their personal relationships. Despite SWs' exposure to job-related trauma and their descriptions of the far-reaching impact of this exposure, there are many barriers to psychological treatment within this population. Strategies for reducing obstacles to intervention and increasing support for this high-risk population are presented.