SOWK 250 Week 3 DB Forum 2 Thread Example

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SOWK 250 Health of the Social Worker, Discussion Board Forum 2 Thread

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The prompt and the forensic interviewer described are composites standing in for the course's own forum; Scripture, the textbooks and the journal articles are real and described from their published sources; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for SOWK 250.

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Jasmine conducts forensic interviews with children at a child advocacy center. After eighteen months, she began seeing images from children's disclosures while driving home, startled at sudden noises and started avoiding a park near her house because it resembled one a child had described. She still loved the work but wondered whether something was wrong with her, and she had stopped telling her husband about her day because she did not want to bring the images home to him.

Grise-Owens et al. (2016) include fear among the self-care challenges helpers face, and Smullens (2015) describes the cumulative emotional toll of clinical work. Jasmine's symptoms point to a specific form of that toll: secondary traumatic stress, in which helpers develop trauma symptoms from indirect exposure to clients' trauma. Bride et al. (2004) developed a scale that measures these symptoms in three clusters, intrusion, avoidance and arousal, mirroring the symptoms of PTSD.

With that instrument, Bride (2007) found that a majority of the social workers surveyed had experienced some symptom of secondary trauma within the past week, and about fifteen percent qualified for a PTSD diagnosis on the core criteria as a direct result of their caseloads. Hensel et al. (2015), in a meta-analysis of risk factors among professionals working with trauma survivors, found that heavier exposure to traumatized clients and a personal trauma history increased risk, while social support was associated with lower levels of secondary traumatic stress.

These findings suggest specific protections for Jasmine: varying her caseload when possible, regular consultation with colleagues after difficult interviews and attention to her own history in supervision or counseling. Her agency could help by scheduling difficult interviews so that no one conducts several in a row and by making peer debriefing a routine part of the day rather than a sign that someone is struggling.

Scripture speaks to the helper's position. Paul describes God as the one who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4). The principle implies that helpers must receive comfort, not only give it, and that comfort received becomes a resource for future service.

What agency practices have you seen that reduce secondary trauma for workers like Jasmine?

References

Bride, B. E. (2007). Prevalence of secondary traumatic stress among social workers. Social Work, 52(1), 63-70. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/52.1.63

Bride, B. E., Robinson, M. M., Yegidis, B., & Figley, C. R. (2004). Development and validation of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale. Research on Social Work Practice, 14(1), 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731503254106

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Grise-Owens, E., Miller, J. J., & Eaves, M. (Eds.). (2016). The A-to-Z self-care handbook for social workers and other helping professionals. The New Social Worker Press.

Hensel, J. M., Ruiz, C., Finney, C., & Dewa, C. S. (2015). Meta-analysis of risk factors for secondary traumatic stress in therapeutic work with trauma victims. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 28(2), 83-91. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.21998

Smullens, S. (2015). Burnout and self-care in social work: A guidebook for students and those in mental health and related professions. NASW Press.