Vicarious Trauma – Mitigating the Effects and Building Personal Resilience

Vicarious trauma (or compassion fatigue) describes the ‘cost of caring for others’ and is a real risk for professionals who regularly work with traumatised clients.

Listening to stories involving abuse or other traumatic experiences is incredibly difficult work as professionals bear witness to the pain, fear, and terror that trauma survivors have endured. Over time it can lead to a continual state of tension, which affects professional performance and function and can result in mistakes or errors of judgement.

This is not simply ‘burnout’, which can be addressed by taking time away from work or changing jobs. Vicarious trauma impacts behaviour, relationships, personal beliefs and mental and physical health.

NAPAC’s 3-hour workshop, Vicarious Trauma: A Practitioners’ Guide to Mitigating the Effects serves to:

– Make professionals aware of the signs, symptoms and potential emotional effects of working with trauma survivors

– Review related psychological theory

– Provide strategies to mitigate the risk

– Help you build a personal resilience plan

This informative and interactive workshop combines current trauma research with NAPAC’s 20+ years of experience providing support to survivors of abuse.