Exposure to traumatic situations is routine for child welfare workers in California, and the attrition rate for newly hired social workers in some states is estimated to be nearly 50% in the 1st year of employment. Prior research has indicated that reasons for dissatisfaction included dysfunctional organizational climate and culture. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which trauma exposure contributed to secondary traumatic stress and intent to quit and to examine the degree to which organizational climate moderated the exposure among direct service child welfare employees. Kurt Lewin's field theory, Figley's theory of secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue, and McCann and Pearlman's constructivist self-development theory were foundational for this study. The research questions determined whether a) trauma exposure to would relate positively with secondary traumatic stress and intent to quit, b) organizational climate would relate negatively with secondary traumatic stress and intent to quit, and c) organizational climate would moderate the relationship between trauma exposure and secondary traumatic stress as well as intent to quit. Pearson correlations indicated that exposure to traumatic situations was statistically related to secondary traumatic stress but not intent to quit, and organizational climate was statistically significant in relation to secondary traumatic stress and intent to quit. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated no interaction effect on either dependent variable but might have approached significance with a larger sample. Positive social change can occur through child welfare organizations emphasizing strategies that can reduce secondary traumatic stress and turnover.

The purpose of this research study was to explore the symptoms of compassion fatigue as experienced by teachers in grades 9-12 during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the research on the effects of compassion fatigue on educators is relatively sparse, the literature regarding compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma in other helping professions revealed a 12-symptom framework. Data collection strategies included individual virtual interviews and field notes. Analysis of data occurred in four phases: (a) analyzing transcripts and identifying themes, (b) categorization of data under the 12 symptoms of compassion fatigue, (c) building the explanation in narrative form, and (d) re-examination of the data. The triangulation of data protected the credibility of the analysis through multiple interview sources and member checking. The results revealed that the physical, emotional, professional, and personal experiences described in the teacher interviews exemplified the 12 established symptoms of compassion fatigue. The results suggested that concern for student experiences during the pandemic combined with other contributing factors to manifest a variety of individual symptoms in participants. The most common contributing factors for participants included concerns for the physical and emotional health and wellbeing of students, student academic issues, feelings of being overwhelmed/overloaded at work, and anger and frustration with the school administration and the school system. The themes that emerged from the data analysis indicate that the most common manifested symptoms include lack of sleep, stress and anxiety, thoughts of leaving the teaching profession, and disconnection from family and friends.

Although previous research has established that therapists who work with sexually-abused children experience symptoms of vicarious trauma, few studies have addressed the process by which the therapist is affected. In order to understand therapists' personal experiences and how working with sexually-abused children impacts them in their personal lives, the researcher interviewed therapists who were currently working with this specific population. Data analysis was completed by using ethnographic research methods and three major themes emerged during the interviews. The first theme included the "job characteristics" inherent in working with sexually-abused children. This theme refers to how the therapists entered the field of therapy, why they wanted to become therapists, and how they began working with children who had been sexually-abused. The subjects also referred to both the challenges and rewards that came from working with sexually-abused children. The second theme that emerged was the impact of working with sexually-abused children on the therapist's personal and professional life. Therapists also talked about how this work affected their view of the world and their relationships with other people. The third theme included coping with stresses associated with working with sexually-abused children. Therapists spoke about ways they individually coped with the stress and how the agency as an organization helped the therapists cope as well. Recommendations for therapists in this field are given and future research is discussed. Implications for clinical practice, training, supervision and structuring agencies are included.

This essay examines Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close through an application of a theoretical framework of trauma studies, aiming to showcase the elements of personal trauma displayed in the novel. Moreover, it wishes to discern the mental and physical sufferings and working through of the trauma through a thematic analysis aimed at the concepts of loss, vicarious trauma and isolation. The study’s results indicate that trauma is inexplicably linked to the individual, demonstrating that prior trauma has a substantial impact on how one deals with more recent trauma. They also suggest that it is impossible to distinguish between first-hand trauma and second-hand trauma, instead focusing on the term vicarious trauma to describe the elements of personal trauma in a better way. Although Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a work of fiction, this essay argues that it is valid in its portraying of trauma as it showcases the complex nature of trauma and its different aspects. In terms of the pedagogical implications of trauma, the essay suggests ways in which one can utilize and address fictional works in the Swedish EFL classroom supported by suggestions articulated by the Swedish National Agency for Education. It is done by raising students’ awareness for the elements of personal trauma, while at the same time improving their all-round communicative skills enabling them to discuss these issues at length.

Mental health professionals in all settings work with clients who are affected by trauma. Traumatic events expose mental health professionals to the negative psychological and emotional impact of witnessing and listening to client stories. Vicarious trauma is the emotional consequence of this empathic engagement with clients. The purpose of this correlational study was to identify predictors of vicarious trauma in mental health professionals that had not been studied before. The theoretical framework guiding the study was the Bowen family systems theory and the construct of differentiation of self. A regression analysis was conducted with a purposive sample of 83 licensed or certified mental health professionals from community counseling agencies in the Midwest. Five research questions were evaluated using multiple regression analysis and determined that subcomponents of differentiation of self (i.e., emotional reactivity, I position, emotional cutoff, and fusion with others) predicted vicarious trauma. An additional regression analysis showed that vicarious trauma was best predicted by 2 subcomponents of differentiation of self; emotional reactivity was the most significant predictor followed by I position. By identifying characteristics in mental health professionals that predict vicarious trauma, counselor educators and supervisors can better educate, train, develop programs, and advocate for the emotional welfare of mental health professionals in the field.

Bakgrund: Tolkar som arbetar med kontakttolkning t.ex. inom sjukvården utsätts ofta för storapåfrestningar (Baistow 2000 redovisad av Valero-Garcés 2005). Att tolka traumatiska berättelser omtortyr kan återuppväcka minnen hos en tolk som själv varit utsatt för detta. (Lor 2012:17-18). Attvidarebefordra negativa besked till en patient kan också vara smärtsamt för tolken (Butow 2012:238).Tolkar får sällan tillräckligt stöd och handledning i sitt arbete (Butow 2012:240) .Metod: Denna studie består av en enkät till 27 tolkar under vidareutbildning. De har svarat på frågorom svåra tolksamtal, vilket stöd de får och vad de anser skulle behövas för att underlätta derasarbetssituation.Resultat: Många av tolkarna påverkas mycket av att behöva ge negativa besked till patienter och av atttolka traumatiska upplevelser. De får sällan stöd i arbetet och de anser att såväl de själva somtolkanvändarna behöver mer utbildning.Slutsats: Tolkarna behöver mer stöd i arbetet men även tolkanvändarna behöver mer utbildning i attanvända tolk. Det behövs både mer omfattande och fördjupade studier för att komma fram till vilkasatsningar som bäst förbättrar tolkarnas situation och tolkningarnas kvalitet. / Background: Community interpreters working in health care often face difficult situations (Baistow2000 described in Valero-Garcés 2005). Interpreters working with refugees often themselves havebeen refugees and when they interpret stories about trauma this might remind them of their own pasttrauma (Lor 2012:17-18). Having to give bad news to a patient can also be painful to the interpreter(Butow 2012:238). In spite of the fact that interpreters have a stressful task, they seldom getappropriate support and guidance in their work (Butow 2012:240).Method: This study is made up of a survey with 27 interpreters undertaking further training. Theyhave been asked questions about to what extent they are exposed to stressful situations, how much thisaffects them and what support they get and what they consider would be needed to improve theirworking conditions.Results: Many interpreters are strongly affected from having to tell the patients bad news and frominterpreting traumatic experiences. The interpreters seldom receive support in their work and theythink they, as well as the health care staff, need more training.Conclusions: Working conditions for the interpreters are demanding and they need more support, butalso the health care staff need more training in how to work with interpreters. There is a need forlarger and deeper studies to decide what has to be done to improve the working conditions for theinterpreters and the quality of the interpretations.

Social work practice in child welfare is widely acknowledged as a challenging field. Most social workers who choose to enter this field of practice do so with the knowledge that they will be exposed to difficult, at times traumatic, situations. They expect that the job will be stressful; that they will need to manage complex and challenging cases; and they will do so with few resources and often little public support. They also expect to be supported by their workplace in carrying out their mandated roles, however increasingly, a disconnect exists between those administer child welfare services and their understanding of front-line work (Herbert, 2007). Social workers’ wellbeing in child protection practice is directly affected by workplace culture; a subject that is often unexamined when addressing the high turnover of staff in the field. Instead, workers who leave child welfare practice – as well as though who stay while experiencing compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma - are viewed by administrators as being unsuitable for the work, a way of individualizing systemic issues (La Rose, 2009). This study sought to understand the ways that the culture of the workplace contributes to worker experiences of vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and burnout. Survey research was conducted anonymously with child protection workers in Southern Ontario to understand the aspects of workplace culture that child welfare workers find helpful and supportive in managing the day-to-day of their work, as well as in addressing mental health in the workplace. From the seventy responses that were received, a number of themes emerged including Workplace Culture; Worker Well-being; Agency Support; Safety; Systemic Issues and Training. In this study, participants identified informal peer support and reflexive, supportive supervision as key areas that either sustained their practice or worsened their experiences. Workplace culture emerged as a significant factor in determining worker well-being and resiliency. Survey participants provided examples that illustrated clearly the ways in which neo-liberal policies and austerity measures have contributed to a workplace culture in which workers expressed feeling replaceable, devalued, and in precarious situations. Cutbacks to services and staffing, crushing workload and increasingly complex client situations contribute to the sense of being overwhelmed experienced by workers. Addressing experiences of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma requires a paradigm shift from exclusively individual responsibility and towards an understanding of the broader systemic context and organizational responsibility (Antonopoulou, 2017; Mathieu, 2012; van Dernoot Lipsky, 2009). Organizational strategies to support worker wellbeing are shown to be significant factors in addressing and preventing compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma, ultimately preventing burnout and staff turnover. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

Recruitment and retention of public child welfare workforce is in crisis due to turnover caused by 1) dissatisfaction with job; 2) excessive stress and burnout, including vicarious trauma; and 3) a lack of support from supervisors and organizations. No instrument was found to evaluate the impact of supervisory support and the use of organizational and professional strategies. The Supervisory and Organizational Support (SOS) survey instrument was created in response to the need for reliable and valid instruments to measure issues related to child welfare workforce turnover. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the SOS survey instrument and was designed to address the following research questions: 1) Does the instrument have demonstrated content validity? 2) Does the instrument have demonstrated construct validity as developed through factor analysis techniques? 3) Does the instrument have demonstrated reliability? 4) To what extent do the instrument and its' subscales correlate with measures of theoretically related and unrelated variables? The results of this study with a sample of 387 employees in 18 Virginia Department of Social Services agencies provide good beginning evidence of content, construct, convergent, and discriminant validity, and reliability of the SOS survey instrument. As such, the SOS survey can be used in studies of social services workforce turnover/ retention. However, to increase confidence in this recommendation, further research should address the implications and limitations of the current study and provide replication of the results with a different sample using confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, the SOS survey instrument may serve to assist in the evaluation of practice and policy efforts aimed at increasing worker retention. / Ph. D.

This study features an examination of the effects of working with traumatised individuals, namely vicarious traumatisation. Predictor variables such as age, career longevity, personal trauma history and workload were correlated with vicarious trauma. Support systems used by nurses were explored. The questionnaire consisted of items of the TSI Belief Scale, demographic characteristics of persons with a personal trauma history, work related aspects and support systems. Participants were 37 nurses (30 female and 7 male) who render a community mental health service in the Cape Metropole. Results of the study indicate that the variables age and career longevity were statistically significantly related to vicarious trauma. There was no relationship between personal trauma history, workload and vicarious trauma. The nurses identified the psychiatrist and psychologist as their main support systems in dealing with vicarious trauma. Recommendations were made to assist the organisation and nurses on how to deal with vicarious trauma. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

Convergence of technology has made access to the Internet faster, easier and cheaper. Criminals, including paedophiles, child abusers and pornography traders make use of this technology to commit criminal offences. Computer Forensic Examiners (CFEs) are members of the Cyber Crime Unit, a professional, specialised unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) who are responsible for computer forensic examination including the investigation of child pornographic images. The aim of the study was to seek understanding on what psychological effects the CFEs experienced when working with the images and was conducted from within the social constructionism and the narrative frameworks. The images had a severe impact on the CFEs as was clearly uncovered in the stories of six CFEs who participated in this study. The participants' stories were recorded and transcribed after which the application of thematic content analysis found that the participants all suffered similar negative effects. These findings were integrated with the findings of a focus group as well as with the findings of a similar study that was conducted during the same time by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and resulted in identifying symptoms of trauma and stress experienced by the CFEs. Based on these results recommendations regarding the support for the CFEs were made. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)