Back to Posts

What is secondary traumatic stress?

 Let’s reduce the stigma and relieve the burden

July 15, 2022

At Children’s Cove, we work with child survivors of sexual abuse, assault, violence, and exploitation. We listen as children tell their story, and our multidisciplinary team gathers the information needed for an investigation. Coordinated care is provided to each child and their non-offending family members who may be affected by the trauma.

For every child who is a victim of crime, there’s a team of professionals from law enforcement, child protection, mental health and medical services working to support them. The trauma the survivor and their family experience is often palpable.  What is also important to note is that the effect of that trauma does not stop with the families – professionals who work in this field also experience something called vicarious trauma or secondary traumatic stress.

Vicarious trauma is when an individual, because of their work, experiences a profound shift in their worldview. This secondary traumatic stress is the emotional toll absorbed at each instance of hearing about someone else’s trauma, or talking with someone about their trauma, or witnessing someone else’s trauma after the fact. This participation in the experience of another’s trauma, even to support them, has consequences that mirrors post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

One misunderstanding about secondary trauma, and the stress felt from it, is the belief that each incident is addressed and moved past. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Secondary traumatic stress is cumulative, as each incident, each memory and each sense is touched from the experience of what you heard, how you heard, where and what you saw. It becomes a permanent impression in your mind,

Often professionals who work at child advocacy centers, law enforcement agencies, as well as those who provide emergency medical, mental health, or child protective services, recognize these experiences as an occupational hazard.  Even when this occupational hazard is identified, there is an expectation that due to the job they hold, they are a professional and should be able to process their vicarious trauma.  This very unfair expectation has created a stigma around asking for help, which creates an emotional burden with no outlet.

With no outlet, imagine each vicarious traumatic experience as a drop of water into a glass a person must carry with them everywhere. At first the weight of that glass isn’t much. But with time, more drops are collected in the glass, the weight builds, the strain grows and the burden of carrying all that water becomes too much. This is usually when the water spills over and the result can be an emotional breakdown, impulsive decision-making like quitting a job, or struggles with substance misuse, or worse.

At Children’s Cove, we believe it’s imperative that our team members are well taken care of – that we address and discuss openly vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress. We incorporate conversations about trauma in our interviews, staff meetings and regular supervision. Our staff regularly attends trainings on managing secondary traumatic stress and we’ve partnered with Calmer Choice to learn mindfulness skills to aid in our own self-care.

For those of you who need help decompressing to relieve secondary traumatic stress, here are a few suggestions we’d like to offer.

The first is the most important: empty your glass before it gets too heavy.

As a larger culture in our country, we have a terrible habit of going and going until we have nothing left. that doesn’t happen to work very well in these circumstances. You must find a way to empty the glass. This is typically something that you do, it’s not something that you take. It’s finding, and setting regular time for, an activity that you enjoy which makes you active, mentally, or physically. It’s taking the time to talk with a friend, and if you feel brave, talk about what you have been feeling lately.  It’s volunteering or engaging in an activity to support others you don’t see regularly. It’s reconnecting with your spirituality or faith. It’s allowing yourself permission to see a therapist.

To address the impact of secondary traumatic stress, it is vital to acknowledge that there is an emotional burden and that it is imperative to take time to heal. Making conscious choices and decisions to set time for ourselves by doing something we know replenishes our strength – either mentally, physically, or spiritually will allow us to empty that glass a little bit, to continue to carry it forward.

Remember, you matter. We matter. The roles that we all play in each other’s lives matter.

Please take care of yourselves.

Join our mailing list.

Stay up to date with what we’re working on!

Back to Posts

A message to our children: “Let’s talk now, not later.”

June 20th, 2022

As the summer arrives, many of us welcome the season by purchasing beach stickers, pulling out the beach towels, bathing suits, floats, boogie boards and coolers for weekends at our favorite seashore spot. We are busy planning summer camp for the kids, family vacations and time off for fun.

At Children’s Cove, we are preparing for summer by provide training and education to camp counselors across the Cape and Islands to recognize and respond to abuse for children in their care. We have turned on the air conditioning to make sure our building is comfortable and welcoming for the families we serve. Summer is also a strategic planning time with our advisory council. Admittedly, at times, it can be quiet over the summer at the Cove, as there is typically a drop in cases referred to us by our community partners. It’s a time for us to catch up, organize, and prepare for the unfortunately busy Fall.

Once kids and teens return to school in the Fall, we get more referrals as school is a place where students make a connection to adults they trust and feel comfortable talking about what happened over the summer. They might reveal their experience with a family member who visited and did something inappropriate, the person at camp who touched them when no one else was around, or the party at the local beach where someone didn’t listen to the word “NO” or used alcohol to get their way.

Once kids and teens return to school in the Fall, we get more referrals as school is a place where students make a connection to adults they trust and feel comfortable talking about what happened over the summer. They might reveal their experience with a family member who visited and did something inappropriate, the person at camp who touched them when no one else was around, or the party at the local beach where someone didn’t listen to the word “NO” or used alcohol to get their way.

When a person is victimized, they often tell no one. Because of the stigma of sexual assault and abuse, coupled with the accompanying feelings of mistrust and fear, approximately 90% of assaults and abuse go completely unreported. Many don’t know who to tell or ask for help. It can take a long time for someone to find their voice. It may take days, weeks, months or longer for a victim to recognize that what they experienced was an assault or at the very least, something which was not consented to. This delay can cause challenges for the victim’s mental and physical health, evidence preservation for an investigation, and unfortunately the degradation of the believability of a survivor by the general public.

We can do something about this.

We need to have open and honest conversations with our kids and teens. Our children need to know it’s okay to speak up and tell us if something happens to them anytime, not just summer. It is important to sit down, talk about sexual abuse and sexual assault, and tell kids and teens that if something happens, it’s not their fault – that they will receive help and support. Let’s talk about consent, what it means to them and what their expectations are if something starts to happen. These are difficult, but necessary conversations to have. When we don’t talk about these issues and let our kids and teens know that it’s ok to talk about them, it only furthers the stigma. Silence says these subjects are taboo and off limits, even if it impacts them.

We want our children to make good decisions, to always act responsibly and safely. However, kids and teens make mistakes. We need them to know they are not responsible for being a victim of child abuse – only the perpetrator of that abuse is at fault. Parents need to let their children know they will not get in trouble for telling them they were assaulted at a party, no matter what they were doing or wearing. Children of all ages should know they can ask for help.

As parents, as caregivers, we need to practice what we preach. When children make mistakes and come to us, we cannot fly off the handle (as much as we’d like to). We need to thank them for being honest. If a child reports something has happened, no matter who it was – believe them, support them, and tell them, “Thank you for being so brave to tell me, or anyone, about this.” The ability to say “thank you for telling me, you are so brave” can make an impact in lessening the stigma of child sexual abuse and assault.

For a simple and fun video which may help start a conversation about consent, follow this link. To learn more about ways to create safe environments for children over the summer, please read this article and resources from our partners at Safe Kids Thrive.

Join our mailing list.

Stay up to date with what we’re working on!