Secondary Traumatic Stress Solutions for Helping Professionals
Secondary traumatic stress is the emotional distress that occurs from indirect exposure to traumatic material (e.g. first-hand accounts, visual images) experienced by others. Its symptoms mimic those of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Secondary Traumatic Stress is an occupational hazard of working with victims of violence, abuse, disasters, or any other traumatic event. This cost of caring can cause job turnover, absenteeism, tardiness , and can threaten service delivery.
This interactive, workshop is designed to assist individuals in preparing for and addressing secondary traumatic stress in their work settings, and is ideally suited for helping professionals in the fields of behavioral health, health care, child welfare, emergency services, corrections, law enforcement, or any field that works with trauma exposed persons.
Topics covered will include:
- Understanding compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, secondary traumatic stress and burnout.
- Screening methods for determining areas of risk, vulnerability and strength.
- Developing a personalized plan for identifying and treating compassion fatigue.
Full and half-day sessions are available. Please contact Dr. Ginny Sprang at sprang@uky.edu.
Secondary Traumatic Stress Informed Breakthrough Series Collaboratives
Breakthrough Series Collaboratives (BSC) are a unique quality improvement and implementation collaborative that takes place over a nine to twelve month period of time. Participating teams make changes in their practices, policies, and environments to respond to staff trauma and promote staff wellness. The goals of these Secondary Traumatic Stress focused BSCs are to:
- Increase the competency of staff to respond to secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma.
- Increase the capacity of the agency to plan and implement improvements that promote staff wellness and resiliency.
- Reduce risk of exposure to situations and events that result in secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma.
If you are interested in participating in a STS-BSC, please contact Dr. Ginny Sprang at sprang@uky.edu