Addressing Vicarious Trauma in Child Protection
A strategic framework for professional resilience and trauma-informed organisational change.
Defining Occupational Stressors
It is vital to distinguish between burnout, secondary traumatic stress (STS), and vicarious trauma (VT). While burnout is general exhaustion, Vicarious Trauma involves a profound shift in a professional’s sense of self and core beliefs following empathic engagement with survivors.
"VT is not just stress; it is the cost of caring. It disrupts core cognitive schemas related to safety, trust, and control."
The Symptom Profile
Psychological Indicators
- ● Intrusive Imagery: Vivid mental images of clients’ trauma.
- ● Avoidance: Emotional numbing and social withdrawal.
- ● Hypervigilance: A pervasive sense that the world is inherently unsafe.
Professional Consequences
- ● Compassion Fatigue: Reduced empathy and job satisfaction.
- ● Boundary Disruptions: Over-involvement or defensive disengagement.
- ● Cynicism: Erosion of professional hope regarding client outcomes.
Assessment Tool: ProQOL
The Professional Quality of Life scale measures the interplay between compassion satisfaction and fatigue. Monitoring these levels ensures early detection of clinical impairment.
Pathways to Resilience
[Image of the Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) organizational model: Safety, Trustworthiness, Peer Support, Collaboration, and Empowerment]Individual Strategies
- Mindfulness: Grounding techniques to manage intrusive thoughts.
- Positive Reframing: Building executive functioning skills to manage load.
- Peer Support: Leveraging social networks to normalise emotional responses.
Organisational Duties
- Tailored Supervision: Moving beyond case logistics to emotional processing.
- Caseload Caps: Ensuring volume is proportionate to emotional demand.
- TIC Culture: Embedding safety and transparency into all internal policy.
Phased Integration Strategy
Audit & Assessment (Months 1–3)
Conduct organisational audits and gather baseline ProQOL data to assess workforce needs.
Capacity Building (Months 4–9)
Deliver mandatory training for all staff; establish trained peer support facilitators.
Policy Formalisation (Months 10–18)
Revise HR policies for critical incident debriefing and specialist mental health referral pathways.
A Culture of Care
Prioritising the psychological health of child protection professionals is not just a moral duty—it is a prerequisite for high-quality care. By moving from reactive crisis management to proactive staff support, we safeguard both the practitioner and the child.
Mark Else
My experience ranges from running playgroups for pre-schoolers to managing complex safeguarding caseloads within both mainstream and SEMH provisions. In addition to having worked within the education sector since 2018, I am currently studying for a Level 6 Youth Work degree.
References
- Caffo, E., Forresi, B. & Lievers, L.S. (2005) ‘Impact, psychological sequelae and management of trauma affecting children and adolescents’, Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 18(4), pp. 422–428. Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health). doi:10.1097/01.yco.0000172062.01520.ac
- Childhood traumas: an outline and overview (1991) American Journal of Psychiatry, 148(1), pp. 10–20. American Psychiatric Association Publishing. doi:10.1176/ajp.148.1.10
- Fernández, V., Gausereide-Corral, M., Valiente, C. & Sánchez-Iglesias, I. (2023) ‘Effectiveness of trauma-informed care interventions at the organisational level: A systematic review’, Psychological Services, 20(4), pp. 849–862. American Psychological Association (APA). doi:10.1037/ser0000737
- Geoffrion, S., Lamothe, J., Morizot, J. & Giguère, C. (2019) ‘Construct validity of the Professional Quality of Life (ProQoL) Scale in a sample of child protection workers’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(4), pp. 566–576. Wiley. doi:10.1002/jts.22410
- Jankowski, M.K., Schifferdecker, K.E., Butcher, R.L., Foster-Johnson, L. & Barnett, E.R. (2018) ‘Effectiveness of a trauma-informed care initiative in a state child welfare system: A randomised study’, Child Maltreatment, 24(1), pp. 86–97. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/1077559518796336
- Kim, J., Chesworth, B., Franchino-Olsen, H. & Macy, R.J. (2021) ‘A scoping review of vicarious trauma interventions for service providers working with people who have experienced traumatic events’, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 23(5), pp. 1437–1460. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/1524838021991310
- Leung, T., Schmidt, F. & Mushquash, C. (2023) ‘A personal history of trauma and experience of secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, and burnout in mental health workers: A systematic literature review’, Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 15(Suppl 2), pp. S213–S221. American Psychological Association (APA). doi:10.1037/tra0001277
- Stokes, Y. et al. (2023) ‘Trauma-informed care interventions used in pediatric inpatient or residential treatment mental health settings and strategies to implement them: A scoping review’, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(3), pp. 1737–1755. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/15248380231193444
- Vang, M.L., Pihl-Thingvad, J. & Shevlin, M. (2022) ‘Identifying child protection workers at risk for secondary traumatisation: A latent class analysis of the Professional Quality of Life Scale–5’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 35(6), pp. 1608–1619. Wiley. doi:10.1002/jts.22863
- Whittenbury, K., Clark, S.L., Brooks, M., Murphy, T., Turner, M.J. & Fawcett, H. (2025) ‘Strengths for helping professionals exposed to secondary trauma: A scoping review’, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 26(2), pp. 251–264. SAGE Publications. doi:10.1177/15248380241309371