Working with Trauma changes us (and we should be talking about it)

I highly recommend a book about the impact of working with trauma for those in the child protection system..   This book, "Trauma Stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others" by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk, should be mandatory reading for anyone in the domestic violence and child welfare fields. I felt so strongly about this that I ordered a number of copies and gave them to the Domestic Violence Consultants who work in Connecticut's Department of Children and Families.   When I gave them the books, I told them, "We make sure you have computers and other things to do your job. This book is just as important a tool for you as those things." (I've been also "seeding" this book among key colleagues hoping to promote more dialog.)

The effects of working with trauma

This book was profoundly useful for me as a person who has worked on issues of violence and abuse for over twenty years. It was also useful to me as a supervisor who is committed to attending to the health and well-being of the people who work for me and as a consultant who is committed to improving the response to domestic violence.

On a personal level

On a personal level, I found my own experience reflected back to me in Laura's words.  She identified the "conversation-stopping"  nature of my work with trauma as related to our society's aversion to dealing with trauma and that felt supportive to me. For example, telling people your work is related to domestic violence doesn't usually lead to lots of follow-up questions.  I heard my own words to my staff reflected in her insistence that acknowledging our limitations is healthy and doesn't mean we are abandoning our clients or not committed to our work.  Reading this book helped me reflect on the ways this work has changed me (a narrow focus on work, a loss of creativity in and out of work, exhaustion and withdrawal), and reminded me that I have the capacity to make positive changes in how I care for myself.

As a supervisor

As a supervisor, I found support in her writings for intensifying my commitment to discussing with my staff and others their trauma exposure reaction. (Laura uses the term "trauma exposure reaction" instead of "vicarious trauma" or "secondary trauma.")  She named our resistance to discussing our reactions to trauma in the lives of our clients because of our own fears of feeling weak or being labeled as weak by others. This can be a very powerful dynamic within child welfare agencies. This helped me raise the subject with my staff.

As a Consultant

As a consultant interested in improving the response of our systems to children exposed to domestic violence perpetrators' behavior, I've become clearer that we need to create more space in our agencies and institutions to talk about how our work on trauma is impacting us.   I don't think we can make our agencies more trauma-informed or help clients heal from their traumas when we don't have the language and skills to deal with our own reactions.   I don't think child welfare supervisors can mentor new workers without being able to talk about how exposure to traumatic material is affecting them. (Could there be a connection between the high turnover rate in child welfare and the lack of institutional capacity to address new workers' trauma exposure reaction? )By looking at our own trauma exposure reactions, we help ourselves, go home healthier to our families, create healthier work environments and develop the compassion and skills we need to help families who have experienced trauma in many forms.