Vicarious Trauma in Child Welfare Workers: A Study of Organizational Responses

Child Abuse Taking Its Toll on the Emotional Well-Being of Pediatricians

“…Factors that have been shown in other studies to contribute to STS include individual factors such as high levels of empathy, having one's own trauma history, less professional experience, as well as organizational factors including higher trauma caseloads and less social and supervisory support. 13,19,28 Further studies utilizing scales such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, 29 that assess the emotional and cognitive components of a person's capacity for empathy, may add to our understanding of what provider variables contribute to disturbing memories that persist from one particular patient experience and inform STS. There may also be additional patient characteristics, such as race, gender, degree of pain or severity of inflicted injury, sequelae of abuse such as mental health symptoms or foster placement, or other morbidities or mortality, that may influence "one patient" informing STS, which were not assessed in this study.…”

Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Traumatic Stress, and Vicarious Traumatization: a Qualitative Review and Research Agenda

“…Sprang et al 2017's organizational assessment). Qualitative data regarding climate and organizational features suggest that higher-level factors play a role in the experience of empathy-based stress (e.g., Dombo and Blome 2016;Pross and Schweitzer 2010), and using data from specific organizations implies at least some homogeneity (i.e., non-independence). More explicit consideration of these factors in a multilevel framework is needed.…”

Trauma-Informed Care in Child Welfare: An Imperative for Residential Childcare Workers

“…Hiles Howard et al (2015) described a need for authoritative leadership rather than authoritarian leadership. Trust among the staff also emerged as an important aspect of social support (Dombo & Blome, 2016;McNamara, 2010). Overall, a non-judgmental and caring workplace culture, where administrators were aware of the potential impacts of trauma exposure and staff were made to feel valuable to the organization, were considered optimal to promote professional well-being (Dombo & Blome, 2016).…”

“…Trust among the staff also emerged as an important aspect of social support (Dombo & Blome, 2016;McNamara, 2010). Overall, a non-judgmental and caring workplace culture, where administrators were aware of the potential impacts of trauma exposure and staff were made to feel valuable to the organization, were considered optimal to promote professional well-being (Dombo & Blome, 2016). A focus on organizational anticipation of the potential impacts of STS was cited in several studies and linked to preventive strategies: ensuring adequate vacations or leaves to allow time and resources for developing outside interests and social support systems (Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008); creating organizational conditions to help workers process the negative impact of daily job stress-specifically exposure to details of child abuse and neglect (McNamara, 2010); taking steps to ensure that younger and single employees were provided with training and coping tools early in their career when they may need it most (Hiles Howard et al, 2015); raising awareness of risks associated with PTSD within the organization (Dagan et al, 2016); providing adequate training to all staff (Dombo & Blome, 2016;Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008); encouraging and providing resources to process personal trauma, including physical and psychological diagnostic and therapeutic services (Dagan et al, 2016;Dombo & Blome, 2016;Eastwood & Ecklund, 2008).…”

“…Bride and Jones (2006) surveyed child welfare case managers and supervisors in a southern American jurisdiction (n = 307), concluding supervisors who were willing to help when problems arose, provide visible, ongoing support for innovations, ideas, and assistance to enhance quality of services were valued. It was not simply the availability of supervision that was important but also that it was considered to be of quality and occurred on a regular basis (Bride & Jones, 2006;Dombo & Blome, 2016). Participants in McNamara (2010) valued supervision that nurtured, affirmed, and normalized their experiences.…”