Leadership needs to develop a culture of compassion and support throughout all levels of the program in order to keep staff healthy and effective. This culture must include all staff and volunteers. Leadership should promote the idea that it takes a compassionate community of people working together to heal from trauma. This culture should be developed and maintained through specific policies, procedures, and regular activities. These include:

• Create opportunities and procedures for employees to vary their duties and alleviate heavy caseloads (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; White, 2006; Slatten, Carson, and Carson, 2011)
• Ensure that employees have a safe and comfortable physi­cal environment in which to work (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; White, 2006)
• Encourage staff to take regular lunch breaks, to use vacation leave, and take sick leave as needed
• Promote practicing resiliency skills both on and off work time (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; Slatten, Carson, and Carson, 2011; Meichenbaum, 2007)
• Include coverage for mental health services in employee health benefits (Bell, Kulkarni, Dalton, 2003)
• Implement support measures that foster connection and cohesion among employees (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; Adams, Shakespeare-Finch, and Armstrong, 2015)
• Model the use of Low Impact Debriefing
• Conduct surveys to elicit employees’ feedback, and assess their satisfaction with the organization including exit interviews. Inquire about recommendations for improving the organization’s response to VT and its impact on employee well-being, turnover, and other aspects of the work (United States Fire Administration, 1999)

One of the best places organizations can start in creating a resiliency program for staff is to take the organizational assessment. You can assess how secondary traumatic stress (STS) informed your agency is by administering the Secondary Traumatic Stress-Informed Organizational Assessment (STSI-OA). The STSI-OA is an assessment tool that can be used to evaluate the degree to which their organization is STS-informed and able to respond to the impact of secondary traumatic stress in the workplace. The STSI-OA identifies specific areas of strength and opportunities to implement STS-informed policies and practices. The results of this tool can be used as a roadmap for future training and implementation activities in the area of STS and trauma-informed care. Agencies should ask their staff (from all departments) to take this assessment on a yearly basis to see where they have grown over the year and areas for future goals.

Assess how Secondary Traumatic Stress-informed your agency is by administering the STS-Informed Organizational Assessment. Free assessments can be accessed at the links below:

• For a copy: uky.edu/CTAC
• For electronic scoring: www.STSInformed.com

From the very beginning, emphasize core values of compassion, respect for each other and clients, and a shared commitment to working with victims.

• Initial job postings and position descriptions should refer to the core values.
• During the interviewing process, give fair warning about the potential impacts of this work. This is necessary for all levels of staffing.
• The interview process should assess the capacities of the applicant to know when they are experiencing stress and to use healthy coping strategies.
• Applicants with previous experience working with traumatized people should be queried about attitudes that can result from secondary traumatic stress, such as excessive cynicism. These can be red flags in the interviewing process.
• Click for a list of sample interview questions

Orienting new staff and trainees at the beginning is very important. They need to be informed about secondary traumatic stress, and about how a culture of compassion, optimism and support, along with regular structured activities, will help prevent it. Before they start seeing clients, they need to know why, how, and when to get support for themselves. (Newell and MacNeil, 2010)

In addition, all staff should receive ongoing professional development training on a regular basis. In addition to enhancing the professional competence and efficacy of staff, these trainings also serve as a buffer to stress-related responses. (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; Bell and Jenkins, 1993; Pearlman and McKay, 2008)

Promote collaborations with other organizations working with victims of trauma and violence for additional information shar­ing and social support. (McCann and Pearlman, 1990)

For more details on how your staff can learn more about signs, resources and skills to combat empathic strain, visit Building Resilient Team Trainings.

In addition to agency business, staff meetings are an important part of maintaining a culture of compassion, optimism and mutual support. They can incorporate institutional rituals that explicitly remind staff that — in spite of the horrific experiences of traumatized people — the world is not a bad place. Some useful practices include:

• BOOK ENDS — Start each meeting asking staff to share a success story and end meeting by encouraging staff to give “shout outs” to acknowledge each other. Practicing gratitude has been demonstrated to increase optimism, joy and other positive emotions. It increases staff resiliency, strengthens relationships and helps to increase altruism and compassion (Emmons & Mishra, 2012).
  
  
• RECOGNIZING THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTE TO THE “HEALING COMMUNITY” — In order to support clients, staff rely on their community partners, such as other health care providers, other service agencies, law enforcement, or local businesses who donate goods. These partners are part of the healing community, and they not only concretely support clients, but provide further evidence to clients that they are not alone, and others are “walking with them” on their healing journey. Remember to do shout outs and show appreciation to these partners. This practice helps to reinforce the good works of our partners while it strengthens and expands the TRC as a healing community.
  
  
• PROMOTE LOW IMPACT DEBRIEFING — Make your organization a “No Slime” zone by utilizing Low Impact Debriefing to control the amount of traumatic material that staff is exposed to. You can find more information.
  
  
• CELEBRATIONS — Such as staff lunches, or parties should be organized around occasions such as work anniversaries, funding awards, birthdays, and other events that have positive meaning for staff.

Individual supervision is essential for all staff. Supervisors should inquire about staff members’ mindfulness of the ways they are impacted by trauma work, as well as the specific coping strategies that are most effective for them, or that they would like to experiment with. (Bell, Kulkarni, and Dalton, 2003; White, 2006; Bednar, 2003; Slatten, Carson, and Carson, 2011).

When addressing secondary traumatic stress, supervisors need to support staff by empowering them and believing in their resiliency. While STS is a real work hazard, it can also be effectively managed. Validate and normalize their experience, and include the exploration of coping strategies. In addition, supervision should:

• Actively promote a flow of direct and clear communication between frontline employees and upper management
• Provide positive and constructive feedback to staff; deliver it in a manner that is in the staff member’s interest
• Explain employees’ roles and responsibilities and clar­ify performance expectations (Bednar, 2003; Adams, Shakespeare-Finch, and Armstrong, 2015)

The STS Supervisory Competencies is a tool that individuals and organizations can use as a benchmark of the competencies needed to provide effective STS supervision, and is also a map to resources that can help address gaps in those competencies.

It’s important that agencies teach and encourage use of resiliency skills while working in a trauma exposed environment to help them remain resilient. The Strategies to Remain Healthy and Compassionate poster represents micro skills that can be used throughout the day. 

For more strategies and skills you can practice, visit Strategies for Resiliency.

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