Child Welfare Information Gateway
Skip to main content
  • U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
  • Administration for Children & Families
  • Children's Bureau
Child Welfare Information Gateway
REPORT ABUSE OR
NEGLECT
FIND HELP WITH A
PERSONAL SITUATION   

Home Topics Publications Library State Resources More Tools & Resources News & Events
REPORT ABUSE OR
NEGLECT
FIND HELP WITH A
PERSONAL SITUATION   
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Chat
  • Free Subscriptions
  • Resources in Spanish
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Chat
  • Resources in Spanish
  • Shopping Cart
  • Home
  • Topics
    • Family-Centered Practice
      • Philosophy and Key Elements of Family-Centered Practice
      • Family-Centered Practice Across the Service Continuum
      • Engaging Families
      • Family-Centered Casework Practice
      • Family Group Decision-Making
      • Engaging Communities to Support Families
      • Creating a Family-Centered Agency Culture
    • Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Definitions of Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Identification of Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Risk Factors That Contribute to Child Abuse and Neglect
      • People Who Engage in Child Abuse or Neglect
      • Impact of Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Child Abuse & Neglect Fatalities
    • Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect
      • National Child Abuse Prevention Month
      • Overview: Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Promoting Child & Family Well-Being
      • Public Awareness & Creating Supportive Communities
      • Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Programs
      • Developing & Sustaining Prevention Programs
      • Evidence-Based Practice for Child Abuse Prevention
      • Evaluating Prevention Programs
    • Responding to Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Introduction to Responding to Child Abuse & Neglect
      • Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect
      • Assessment in Child Protection
      • Differential Response in Child Protective Services
      • Child Protection Casework Practice
      • Responding to Child Maltreatment Near Fatalities and Fatalities
      • Trauma-Informed Practice in Child Welfare
      • Collaborative Responses to Child Abuse & Neglect
    • Supporting & Preserving Families
      • Supporting Families With Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders
      • Introduction to Family Support and Preservation
      • In-Home Services Involved With Child Protection
      • Family Support Services
      • Resources for Managers of Family Support and Preservation Services
      • Family Preservation Services
    • Out-of-Home Care
      • National Foster Care Month
      • Overview: Out-of-Home Care
      • Foster Care
      • Group and Residential Care
      • Kinship Care
      • Casework Practice in Out-of-Home Care
      • Transition to Adulthood and Independent Living
      • Placement Decisions
      • Resources for Foster Families
    • Achieving & Maintaining Permanency
      • Overview: Achieving & Maintaining Permanency
      • Reunifying Families
      • Recruiting and Retaining Resource Families
      • Permanency With Relatives and Kin
      • Guardianship
      • Permanency for Specific Youth Populations
      • Legal and Court Issues in Permanency
      • Interjurisdictional Placements
      • Working With Children, Youth, and Families in Permanency Planning
      • Working With Children, Youth, and Families After Permanency
      • Resources for Administrators and Managers About Permanency
      • Resources for Families About Permanency
    • Adoption
      • National Adoption Month
      • All-In Foster Adoption Challenge
      • Children's Bureau Adoption Call to Action
      • Adoption and Guardianship Assistance by State
      • Introduction to Adoption
      • Ethical Issues in Adoption
      • For Adopted People
      • For Adoption Program Managers & Administrators
      • For Expectant Parents Considering Adoption and Birth Parents
      • How to Adopt
      • Laws Related to Adoption
      • Parenting After Adoption
      • Preplacement Adoption Casework Practice
      • Postplacement Adoption Casework Practice
      • Search & Reunion in Adoption
    • Management & Supervision
      • Administering & Managing Child Welfare Agencies & Programs
      • Child Welfare Practice Improvement
      • Disaster Preparedness & Response
      • Ethical Practice & Client Rights
      • Evaluating Program and Practice Effectiveness
      • Funding
      • Information Systems & Data
      • Supervising Child Welfare Services
      • System Reform
      • Training
      • Workforce
    • Systemwide
      • Assessment
      • Behavioral Health & Wellness
      • Courts
      • Cultural Responsiveness
      • Diverse Populations and Communities
      • Domestic Violence
      • Human Trafficking
      • Laws & Policies
      • Service Array
      • Statistics
      • Well-Being
      • Youth
  • Publications
    • Publications Series
    • Browse by Topic
    • Browse by Title
    • índice de Títulos en Español (Spanish Title Index)
  • Library
    • Library Services
    • Library Search Help
  • State Resources
    • State Statutes
    • National Foster Care & Adoption Directory
    • State Guides & Manuals Search
    • State-Related Organizations Lists
    • Adoption and Guardianship Assistance by State
  • More Tools & Resources
    • Related Organizations
    • Learning Center
    • Resources From the Children's Bureau
      • Children's Bureau Discretionary Grants
      • The Story of the Children's Bureau
      • Children's Bureau Video Series
    • Child Welfare Information Gateway Podcast Series
    • Multimedia
      • Videos
      • Webinars
    • Family Engagement Inventory
  • News & Events
    • Free Subscriptions
    • Adoption Triad
    • Children's Bureau Express (CBX)
    • The Grantee Connection
    • New on Information Gateway
    • New From the Children's Bureau
    • Event Calendar
  • Home
  • Topics
  • Management & Supervision
  • Workforce
  • Well-Being of the Workforce
  • Self-Care to Address Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress

Self-Care to Address Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress

Child welfare professionals are susceptible to burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Burnout is a state of physical, mental, and/or emotional exhaustion caused by excessive or prolonged stress. Secondary traumatic stress can occur when a professional experiences high stress or symptoms of trauma when working with people who have experienced trauma. Social services agencies are recognizing how important it is for their employees to focus on self-care, especially with the increasing rates of turnover in the workforce. Use these resources to explore guidance, research, and training on how child welfare professionals can focus on self-care to address burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

  • Burnout
  • Secondary Traumatic Stress

2021 Top 10 Self-Care Resources (PDF - 225 KB)
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2021)
Offers self-care resources that child welfare professionals can use to manage stress and prevent burnout.

Caregivers Guide to Well-Being (PDF - 4,884 KB)
Alia (2021)
Offers techniques that child welfare professionals can use to focus on their well-being, reverse burnout, and decrease the secondary traumatic stress that comes from being a caregiver.

Identifying Compassion Satisfaction, Burnout, and Traumatic Stress in Children’s Advocacy Centers 
Letson, Davis, Sherfield, Beer, Phillips, & Wolf (2020)
Child Abuse & Neglect, 110(3)
Shares the results of a study that aimed to measure burnout and secondary traumatic stress in child welfare professionals to explore their impacts and potential coping mechanisms. 

Key Takeaways From Building a Resilient Workforce to Address Trauma and Enhance Well-Being: Supporting Self-Care at the System Level
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2021) 
Presents key takeaways from a discussion on how child welfare organizations can support self-care within the workforce. The brief includes recommended strategies to support self-care.

Professional Quality of Life Measure: ProQOL.org
ProQOL Office of the Center for Victims of Torture
Reviews information on burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue for health-care professionals, social service workers, and others. Tools include the free ProQOL Scale (PDF – 268 KB), which measures the positive and negative effects of helping others and is available in 28 languages.

Professional Wellness
National Association of Social Workers North Carolina Chapter
Provides information and resources to assist and guide professionals in health and well-being. 

Self-Care Strategies (PDF - 187 KB)
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2019)
Offers strategies that child welfare workers can use to practice self-care and reduce stress. These include listening to music, yoga, aromatherapy, animal therapy, and others.

(Back to Top)

Burnout

Burnout Among Forensic Interviewers, How They Cope, and What Agencies Can Do to Help
Fansher, Zedaker, & Brady (2020)
Child Maltreatment, 25(1)
Examines burnout among forensic interviewers to identify predictors of burnout and learn what types of coping mechanisms can help address burnout.

Child Welfare Can Address Burnout (PDF - 582 KB) [Infographic]
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2019)
Describes predictors of burnout for child welfare workers along with suggestions for ways to address burnout at the individual level and organizational level.

Episode 17: Self-Care and Avoiding Burnout [Podcast]
National Association of Social Workers
Offers a podcast on how child welfare workers can prevent and address burnout.

Healing and Joy: Tools to Address Burnout and Increase Wellness in Tribal Child Welfare [Webinar]
Capacity Building Center for Tribes (2021)
Shares self-care techniques, reflexive breathing, icebreakers, team-building exercises, and online resources for professionals to avoid burnout.

Hope and Resilience as Protective Factors Linked to Lower Burnout Among Child Welfare Workers
Pharris, Munoz, &Hellman (2022)
Children and Youth Services Review, 136(2)
Reviews the results of a study that examined how hope and resilience can help to reduce burnout and turnover in the child welfare workforce.

How Peer Support Can Reduce Burnout and Improve Worker Well-Being (PDF - 146 KB) [Infographic]
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2022)
Explores how peer support can lower burnout for child welfare workers and presents strategies to cultivate peer support.

Peer Support Program Works to Keep DCS Workers From Burning Out
Pitzl (2018)
Azcentral.com
Examines how peer support networks for child welfare workers can assist with healing from burnout and secondary traumatic stress.

(Back to Top)

Secondary Traumatic Stress

An Exploration of Child Welfare Caseworkers’ Experience of Secondary Trauma and Strategies for Coping
Rienks (2020)
Child Abuse & Neglect, 110(3)
Explores child welfare workers’ experiences of secondary traumatic stress and the extent to which certain coping strategies may help to prevent and address it.

Impact of Secondary Traumatic Stress on the Child Welfare Workforce [Video]
Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development
Presents a video that features child welfare workers and supervisors discussing how secondary traumatic stress affects the workforce.

Key Takeaways From Building a Resilient Workforce to Address Trauma and Enhance Well-Being: Connecting to Cultural Ways
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2021)
Reviews takeaways from a discussion with Rita Hart, Tribal child welfare specialist at the Capacity Building Center for Tribes. The discussion focused on connecting to cultural ways within the workforce and using culture as self-care to address traumatic stress and enhance well-being.

Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) – Its Impact on the Child Welfare Workforce and Strategies for Agencies to Address It
Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (2021)
Explains symptoms of secondary traumatic stress and what the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development is doing in several jurisdictions to help child welfare staff learn to manage it.

A Trauma-Informed Approach to Workforce
National Fund for Workforce Solutions (2021)
Presents a document to help organizations understand toxic stress and the effects of trauma on workers and offers strategies to advance trauma-informed approaches to workforce well-being.

Trauma-Informed Yoga for Child Welfare Professionals [Video]
Crisafi
National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (2021)
Focuses on using research-based, trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness practices to address signs of secondary traumatic stress or nervous system dysregulation caused by stress or burnout.

(Back to Top)

Spotlight On

Episode 4: Secondary Traumatic Stress

Self-Care Infographic (PDF - 944 KB)

National Child Welfare Workforce Institute

Self-Care Resources to Help Address Burnout and Increase Wellness in Tribal Child Welfare (PDF - 386 KB)

Capacity Building Center for Tribes (2020)

Emergency Responders: Tips for Taking Care of Yourself

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018)

Children's Bureau - An office of the Administration for Children and Families

Child Welfare Information Gateway is a service of the

  • Children’s Bureau
  • Administration for Children and Families
  • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
↑ Back to top
  • HOME
  • TOPICS
    • Family-Centered Practice
    • Child Abuse & Neglect
    • Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect
    • Responding to Child Abuse & Neglect
    • Supporting & Preserving Families
    • Out-of-Home Care
    • Achieving & Maintaining Permanency
    • Adoption
    • Management & Supervision
    • Systemwide
  • National Initiatives
    • National Adoption Month
    • National Child Abuse Prevention Month
    • National Foster Care Month
  • Publications
    • Publications Series
    • Browse by Title
    • Browse by Topic
    • Índice de Títulos en Español
  • Library
    • Search the Library
  • State Resources
    • State Statutes
    • National Foster Care & Adoption Directory
    • State Guides & Manuals
    • State Related Organizations Lists
    • Adoption Assistance by State
  • More Tools & Resources
    • Related Organizations
    • Learning Center
    • Children's Bureau Resources
    • Information Gateway Podcast
    • Multimedia
    • Family Engagement Inventory
  • NEWS AND EVENTS
    • New on Information Gateway
    • New From the Children's Bureau
    • Event Calendar
  • ABOUT US
    • How to Report Child Abuse or Neglect
    • Find Help With a Personal Situation
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Glossary
    • Search A to Z
  • Contact Us
    • 1-800-394-3366
    • info@childwelfare.gov
    • Subscribe to Free Updates
    • Chat With Us
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on YouTube
  • POLICIES & HELPFUL LINKS
    • Disclaimer and Policies
    • Privacy Policy
    • Accessibility
    • FOIA requests
    • No FEAR Act data
    • Office of the Inspector General
    • Performance reports
    • Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
    • USA.gov
    • Download Acrobat Reader
  • ↑ Back to top