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Strategies to Manage Traumatic Stress in Child Welfare Professionals

Learn to recognize and address traumatic stress as an occupational hazard in child welfare. Explore symptoms, impacts, and strategies to promote resilience. Evaluate personal and professional impact. Takeaway tools for self-care.

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Strategies to Manage Traumatic Stress in Child Welfare Professionals

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  1. 313: Managing the Impact of Traumatic Stress on the Child Welfare Professional

  2. Learning Objectives Participants will be able to: • Identify common terms associated with trauma relating to child welfare professionals; • Recognize traumatic stress as an occupational hazard in the child welfare profession; • Identify the symptoms of traumatic stress; • Assess through self-reflection, the impact of both traumatic stress and personal strengths on one’s personal and professional life; and • Develop strategies to manage traumatic stress and promote resiliency.

  3. Agenda • Welcome and Introductions • What is Traumatic Stress? • The Symptoms of Traumatic Stress • The Impact of Traumatic Stress • Strategies for Managing Traumatic Stress and Promoting Resiliency • Summary and Evaluations

  4. Quality Service Review Indicator 1a: Safety: Exposure to Threats of Harm Degree to which: • The child/youth is free of abuse, neglect, and exploitation by others in his/her place of residence, school, and other daily settings. • The child/youth’s parents and/or caregivers provide the attention, actions, and supports and possess the skills and knowledge necessary to protect the child/youth from known and potential threats of harm in the home, school, and other daily settings.

  5. Carrying Darisabel

  6. Culture and Traumatic Stress Yes, they are related.

  7. On the Other Hand, Burnout… describes anyone whose health is suffering or whose outlook on life has turned negative because of the impact or overload of their work. (Rothschild, B. 2006)

  8. Burnout and Secondary Trauma - What’s the Difference? Both conditions have similar roots. Both conditions involve the cumulative effects of stress. Both conditions elicit similar responses from affected employees. While trauma deals with exposure to clients’ trauma and our own trauma, burnout adds the daily stressors of functioning in the overall workplace.

  9. Traumatic Stress Our exposure to trauma occurs daily because of repeated exposure to trauma, suffering and tragedy. The effect is cumulative, like exposure to radiation. It creates discernable changes in the employees in their physical health, psychological health, and spiritual well being.

  10. Don’t Let Ideas Get Away!

  11. What are Secondary Adversities? Maladaptive coping strategies or additional challenges that may arise as a result of being exposed to traumatic events May be adaptive in the short term but also have the potential to interfere with an independent long-term recovery

  12. Don’t Let Ideas Get Away!

  13. True or False? Social Work students report having experienced more traumatic events in early childhood than business students. TRUE

  14. True or False? When a caseworker displays signs of traumatic stress, it indicates it is time to seek out another line of work. FALSE

  15. True or False? Caseworkers who have been exposed to traumatic stress are typically less effective caseworkers. FALSE

  16. Prevalence of Secondary Trauma in Our Work About 55% of child welfare professionals have at least one core symptom cluster (group of symptoms) of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Almost 16% of workers meet the criteria for PTSD. (Bride, 2007).

  17. What Impact Does Traumatic Stress Have on Us?

  18. What Impact Does Traumatic Stress Have on Our Agencies?

  19. How Exposure to Trauma Affects Others Others that can be affected from our traumatic stress: • Co-workers • Our family • Our friends

  20. Assessing the Impact on Those that Support Us Have you noticed the way I behave and appear to be different when I’m under pressure? Do I seem to be acting that way increasingly more and more of the time? What ways do you think my work is affecting me during the last week or year? From your point of view, how isthis behavior change affecting you or other people that I care about?

  21. Assessing Risk and Impact The PROQOL Scale

  22. Don’t Let Ideas Get Away!

  23. Resilience A person’s ability to “bounce back” from hardship or a difficult situation. (ACS-NYU, Children’s Trauma Institute, 2011).

  24. Strategies for Managing Trauma • Change the external circumstances that are provoking stress and trauma reaction. • Change the internal approach or internal locus of control.   • Search for Support. HeadingtonInstitute, 2011

  25. Managing Physical Responses to Trauma

  26. Managing Cognitive Responses to Trauma

  27. Completing Your Trauma-Informed Self-Care Plan

  28. Don’t Let Ideas Get Away!

  29. Questions and Answers

  30. Use Your Action Plan Often!

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