To crime victim advocates, helping carry the weight of others’ traumatic experiences is seen as just part of the job. Due to this normalization around emotional stress and advocacy, research on secondary or vicarious trauma in advocates didn’t take off until more recently. The issue of vicarious trauma began to receive attention in the 90s. However, the research focused primarily only on the negative effects of trauma in counselors and therapists. There was still little known about the demanding work of advocacy and what may endanger or protect advocate’s wellbeing. So by the early 2000s, researchers studied just that. The results prompted federal funding from the US Office for Victims of Crime, to assist victim service organizations in addressing vicarious trauma by launching a groundbreaking project called The Vicarious Trauma Toolkit. This was the first federal acknowledgement of vicarious trauma and has since fueled dozens of other research projects. Vicarious or secondary trauma is exposure to stories of other people’s traumatic experiences or witnessing trauma in which you are not the primary victim or survivor. This indirect trauma exposure can include witnessing people suffering from violence, injury, severe illness. Having someone tell you about their own traumatic experiences or even reading about trauma. By nature of the work, nearly all crime victim advocates are exposed to the traumatic experiences of others. In 2016, researchers from the University of Nevada surveyed over a hundred advocates from across the US and found that over half displayed significant levels of secondary traumatic stress. Making experts in the field take pause and ask what is being done to help advocates resist being traumatized at work? Secondary traumatic stress is a type of vicarious traumatization that can result when exposure to someone else’s trauma causes negative mental, physical, spiritual, or work-related reactions. Vicarious traumatization is a natural response to being exposed to trauma that as many as half of all crime victim advocates experience. And one that can lead to serious consequences if not properly treated. Vicarious trauma also affects researchers or other educators who regularly come into contact with stories or details of trauma in other ways, such as reading books and papers about trauma and training first responders who share what they’ve witnessed in the field. Advocates may be especially vulnerable to vicarious traumatization if they are repeatedly exposed to detailed accounts of violence and abuse and to witnessing survivor’s immediate post traumatic distress and injury. Advocates who have directly experienced trauma themselves have negative workplace conditions like poor leadership and high workload and who provide short term crisis intervention services such as hotline specialists, without getting to witness the positive impact they’ve had on survivor recovery are at greater risk for vicarious traumatization. Vicarious trauma can result in the same symptoms of post-traumatic stress as experiencing direct trauma like hypervigilance, flashbacks, feeling numb or shut down, emotional regulation difficulty, sleep problems and even full blown PTSD. In fact, current diagnostic criteria from the American Psychiatric Association lists vicarious trauma as a potential cause of PTSD. Advocates experiencing vicarious traumatization may feel like they’ve lost their sense of trust or safety in the world and in their ability to help. Or that they’ve lost their sense of value and personal identity and can experience problems in their personal and professional relationships. Advocates have described how vicarious trauma affects both their personal and professional lives.

[Advocate #1] I don’t watch the evening news anymore. Whenever I see a dad with a daughter, I worry he’s a perpetrator.

[Advocate #2] I can’t tolerate interruptions at work. I just read all I can about prior cases in an effort to do my best for my clients. And I become irritable and withdrawn from colleagues and get angry about their flippant attitudes.

[Advocate #2] I’m anxious and frightened of being assaulted when walking to my car.

[Advocate #1] I go out less, and when I do, I no longer tell anyone what I do for a living. When my partner is late getting home, I fear the worst.

But the effects of working with trauma survivors aren’t all negative. People exposed to others’ traumatic experiences can also experience vicarious resilience or compassion satisfaction which refers to positive self growth that can happen as a result of working with trauma survivors. Advocating for trauma survivors can be deeply personal, rewarding and fulfilling work that gives advocates a sense of purpose and identity. So what can be done to promote these positive impacts of working with trauma survivors and prevent advocates from being traumatized at work? In 2020, a research paper looked at that question by systematically reviewing the existing research on vicarious trauma in those who work with children traumatized by abuse or neglect. This review confirmed the suspected high levels of vicarious traumatization in the majority of child welfare and protection workers. And identified many factors that can influence how advocates are affected by vicarious trauma, including what promotes advocate resilience. Lisa Tieszen is one of the authors on that research paper and an advocate and clinician whose expertise focuses on working with trauma exposed teams and organizations across the country. She helped reach the conclusion that while being exposed to the traumatic experiences of others is inevitable in victim advocacy, experiencing the negative effects of vicarious traumatization is preventable and treatable. Advocates can gain vicarious resilience when they observe resilience in their clients and help them overcome challenges. Compassion satisfaction can result when advocates feel they are able to do work efficiently and effectively help people. Advocates who have resources to recover from personal trauma, who are able to follow a client through their healing journey and who work in supportive organizations are more likely to experience positive outcomes like vicarious resilience and compassion satisfaction. Recent research has shown that levels of compassion satisfaction in advocates are just as high as levels of vicarious trauma and both can be present at the same time. Highlighting that despite the risks of vicarious trauma and victim advocacy, there are a great deal of rewards to doing such important work. If you’re experiencing vicarious traumatization, you’re not alone. And there are ways to get help. Since the effects of vicarious trauma are similar to those of direct trauma, the same supports that advocates direct to other trauma survivors too, can be useful for vicarious trauma as well, including therapy and support groups. However, while many recommendations for vicarious trauma focus on advocate self-care. Recent research has found that organizational factors like policies, practices and resources that impact an advocate’s ability to practice self-care and that foster wellbeing and resilience at work are critically important in addressing vicarious trauma. Vicarious traumatization can be prevented when organizations provide supports that promote vicarious resilience and compassion satisfaction, including creating supportive workplace environments that allow advocates to have a voice in decision making and the ability to give feedback to their supervisors. Policies for reporting and addressing negative workplace experiences, regular debriefing sessions to help advocates talk about difficult experiences and emotions, and offering mental health services and social support, while also creating an organizational culture that normalizes and encourages seeking help. For advocates with a personal history of trauma, organizations can prevent vicarious traumatization by acknowledging unique survivor advocate needs, fostering a sense of belonging in the work and honoring survivor advocate’s unique strengths. There are specific plans that organizations can follow to become vicarious trauma informed and prevent vicarious traumatization. In the next video, Lisa Tieszen will elaborate on ways to prevent the negative effects of vicarious trauma in victim advocacy. Visit the resource library to find the vicarious trauma toolkit, the advocacy education and support project and other resources for more information.