Essay Example on Staff Burnout and Vicarious Trauma

Introduction

Staff burnout is an emotional condition that usually results as a result of fatigue, either physically or mentally. This is generally evidenced, especially when a worker is subjected to long-lasting conditions of stress and depressions, of cases of frustrations. Frustrations and stress in a workplace can be caused by several factors such as; poor working environment. This results when the job is so stressful and demanding; there is a lack of adequate coordination with the leaders of the company or institution, this makes it hard to obtain support and distribute resources effectively (Merchant & Whiting, 2015). Jobs with tight deadlines may also cause depression, which can eventually propagate to burnout. So it is the fatigue. These illnesses may also be triggered by domestic violence, and when a single individual handles such criminal activities, stress can quickly develop (Wies, 2008).

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On the other hand, vicarious trauma is a type of psychological disorder which mostly experienced by counselors or therapists. The development trends to grow progressively as the interaction between the counselors and the people living with the depressions lengthens. During this therapy process, a counselor gets to listen to a variety of stories and witnessing the cases of pain and fear that the individuals go through. The continuous exposure leads to a disorder known as vicarious trauma. Most of the counselor's usually face this challenge during their occupation either when working or volunteering in specific fields such as the victim services. This can also be referred to as secondary trauma or passive trauma or second-hand trauma. The therapist does not initially suffer from injury but develops the problem due to the regular contact and interaction with the people suffering from trauma.

How Victim Service Agencies Prevent the Two Mental Illnesses

After understanding the basic definitions and the differences between the two terms, there is a need to investigate how the effects can be lowered in the workplace. The use of victim service agencies is one of the mitigation strategies that can be used to control the impact by completely eradicating or reducing the chances of their occurrence. These are an entity that operates in the public or private domain and gets funding assistance from external sources to help in managing victims such as those with trauma (Wasco et al., 2002). The central aim of this study is to understand how, effective and efficient, the use of victim service agencies can be used to prevent the working team members from getting burnout or secondary trauma when working with the survivors

Most victim service agencies operate online and offline and therefore possess either one or all of the online sites such as; websites and social media. Because the two problems of burnout and vicarious trauma typically results from the physical contact or assistance offered to the patients with trauma. Alternatively, these services can be provided online to patients to enhance both safety and privacy. The following are some of the ways that can be used to prevent mental or emotional diseases:

Easy Distribution of Work

Victim service agencies typically contain a team that consists of more than ten people mandated to help the victims. If this is the case, then tasks can even be distributed amongst the group. This reduces the instances of fatigue (Babin et al., 2012). One of the causes of burnout is fatigue when an individual performs many tasks, which may also be needed within a short period. With a large team, a lot of work can be delivered within a short period to meet the deadlines without any unnecessary straining.

Offering Physical Exercise Activities Like Sports

Victim service agencies can also help in controlling both burnout and vicarious trauma by organizing sports activities with the victims. This can prevent fatigue, and it can also refresh the mind to relieve the possible building of depression in the brain. The team is large enough; the practice can expertly be planned and completed, compared to when the therapist is only one (Bell et al., 2003). For the criminal victims, there are several challenges at the domestic level; as a result, teamwork is essential to create more appropriate strategies for dealing with the household level criminals (Salston & Figley, 2003).

Creating Many Help Desk Units For the Victims

Having many therapists in the agency makes one counselor address less number of cases compared to when the individual is one, and every victim approaches him/her for consultations. With the agencies, the team can also discuss some of the factors or causes of patents, which may prove to be overburden to be handled with a single person. A conducive working environment with good communication skill with social support is also provided.

References

Babin, E. A., Palazzolo, K. E., & Rivera, K. D. (2012). Communication skills, social support, and burnout among advocates in a domestic violence agency. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 40(2), 147-166.

Bell, H., Kulkarni, S., & Dalton, L. (2003). Organizational prevention of vicarious trauma. Families in society, 84(4), 463-470.

Merchant, L. V., & Whiting, J. B. (2015). Challenges and retention of domestic violence shelter advocates: A grounded theory. Journal of Family Violence, 30(4), 467-478.

Salston, M., & Figley, C. R. (2003). Secondary traumatic stress effects of working with survivors of criminal victimization. Journal of traumatic stress, 16(2), 167-174.

Wasco, S. M., Campbell, R., & Clark, M. (2002). A multiple case study of rape victim advocates' self-care routines: The influence of organizational context. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30(5), 731-760.

Wies, J. R. (2008). Professionalizing human services: A case of domestic violence shelter advocates. Human Organization, 221-233.