Secondary Traumatic Stress & Professional Resilience

Gentry, Baranowsky, and Dunning (2002) note that all professional caregivers will at some point in their professional lives be forced to confront secondary traumatic stress and burnout. Working with traumatized clients indisputably has negative effects upon the mental health professional, including social workers (Ting, 2005).

The effects of secondary traumatic stress are believed to impair the ability of clinicians to effectively help those seeking their services (Figley, 1999). Professionals experiencing secondary traumatization are believed to be at higher risk to make poor professional judgements such as misdiagnosis, poor treatment planning, or abuse of clients than those not experiencing secondary traumatization (Rudolph, Stamm, & Stamm, 1997).

Ascher (1992) referred to urban school studies that focused on working conditions as a key to retaining good teachers. Such conditions are associated with better teacher attendance, more effort, higher morale and a greater sense of efficacy in the classroom. These conditions involve:

• Strong, supportive principal leadership
• Good physical working conditions
• High levels of staff collegiality
• High levels of teacher influence on school decisions
• High levels of teacher control over curriculum and instruction (Hammond, 1996)