INDIRECT TRAUMA IS DEEPLY AFFECTING NOVA SCOTIAN SOCIAL WORKERS AUTHOR: LAURIE OGILVIE
The New Democratic Party, social workers, and the Canadian Association of Social Workers have all reported social workers are experiencing burnout, are overworked, and have been affected by their professional interaction with trauma. Despite this, little scholarship has been put towards researching indirect trauma and how it impacts social workers in Canada, though it is part of our everyday working lives.
social workers cope with it within the context of current working conditions – and found out quickly how little information and research is available about the relation between Canadian social workers, vicarious trauma, coping, and resilience.
Our project focused on vicarious trauma and
Over the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to join the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers as their summer student and began exploring these complex phenomena.
revealed that we need to manage social workers’
We began with defining what the different types of indirect trauma are – focusing on vicarious trauma, and how can
support, and resilience.
8 Connection | Winter 2019
exposure to indirect trauma, through coping,
