This document provides an overview of a presentation about building resiliency for those working in trauma fields like child welfare. The presentation covers: 1) The potential impacts of secondary traumatic stress on helpers, including effects on cognition, emotions, behavior, and physical health. 2) Strength-based concepts that can help increase resilience, like passion for the work, an internal locus of control, seeing challenges as opportunities, and high emotional intelligence. 3) Actions individuals and organizations can take to strengthen resiliency, such as self-reflection, mindfulness, modeling resilient behaviors, and focusing on hiring and development. The presentation aims to help participants understand the effects of trauma exposure and identify personal strategies for preventing stress

1. Managing The Impact Helping
Can Have
through Resiliency Building
Presented by:
Lib Hinson, LISW-CP, AP
and
Libby Ralston, Ph.D., LISW-CP; LMFT
Charleston, SC
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2. Learning Objectives
1. Participants will learn about the potential impact of
trauma to the "well being" of staff, volunteers and their
organizations as we work daily to protect and heal child
victims.
2. Participants will learn about passion, stress hardiness
and emotional intelligence and other concepts that are
"strength based" and have the potential to support
resilience and the capacity for long term, positive work
in the trauma field.
3. Participants will have an opportunity to apply these
strength based concepts to themselves and to identify
actions to take to increase resiliency in themselves as
they interact with and their community partners.
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3. What is Trauma?
3
Child Welfare Committee, National Child
Traumatic Stress Network. (2008). Child welfare
trauma training toolkit: Comprehensive guide (2nd
ed.). Los Angeles, CA & Durham, NC: National
Center for Child Traumatic Stress
Trauma is defined as an experience that
threatens life or physical integrity AND that
overwhelms an individuals capacity to cope.

4. What is Being Trauma Informed?
Being trauma informed requires:
•Considering the potential impact of trauma as we consider how to best
respond to the needs of abused and traumatized children.
•When we have a concern about a child, to consider the possibility that the
child has experienced a trauma which has resulted in traumatic stress that
is playing a role in that concern.
•Thinking about trauma, doing a trauma screen and assessment to inform
our interventions with a child and family.
•Understanding the potential risk of exposure to the trauma of others on
those in a helping role or profession.
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5. Potential Impact of trauma on helpers
Vicarious Traumatic Stress involves reactions of
supporters/helpers to those who actually experienced the
trauma
Secondary Traumatic Stress may result from
•exposure to traumatic material from the victim
•talking to others about trauma
•learning about the impact of trauma on the children we
serve
•dealing with a complex community system
•not being able to protect/help heal a child
•may lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
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6. Secondary Traumatic Stress
“The natural and consequent behaviors
and emotions resulting from knowing
about a traumatized event from a
significant other, the stress from helping
or wanting to help a traumatized or
stressed person.” (Figley, 1995)
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7. Potential Risk of STS
Secondary Traumatic Stress can alter:
•how we think about our work
•our world view
•how we feel about ourselves and others
•our professional and personal relationships
• our feelings about children and families we serve
• and can impact our capacity for empathy
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8. Potential Impact of STS
Cognitive
effects
• Negative bias,
pessimism
• All-or-nothing
thinking
• Loss of perspective
and critical thinking
skills
• Threat focus – see
clients, peers,
supervisor as
enemy
• Decreased self-
monitoring
Social impact
• Reduction in
collaboration
• Withdrawal and
loss of social
support
• Factionalism
Emotional
impact
• Helplessness
• Hopelessness
• Feeling
overwhelmed
Physical impact
• Headaches
• Tense muscles
• Stomachaches
• Fatigue/sleep
difficulties
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9. Cognitive Shift?
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10. Potential Risk of STS
May result in coping techniques that
include:
•Minimize or avoid the traumatic material
• Be unwilling/unable to “hear” the material
• Distance ourselves from the child and/or family
• Distance ourselves from colleagues
• Develop/use punitive responses
• Abandon the child/family
• Being Self-Protective/self focused vs. child focused
• Substance abuse
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11. How can this impact
your work?
•Working with abuse victims attract staff and volunteers
who want to be a part of helping abused children and
their families; however, the actual work leaves some
individuals feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious and
over identifying with the traumatized victims they serve.
•Attention has been given to the risk of Secondary
Traumatic Stress and many agencies have implemented
actions and programs to help staff manage STS as a way
to reduce staff and volunteer "burning out", "bailing out"
or "moving on" from this work.
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12. Summary of Potential Risk
Staff and volunteers may:
• see or define themselves as a victim and/or
assimilate the characteristics of victims into
their own view of themselves and their work.
• get caught up in the drama of the abuse and
play a role in maintaining the drama.
• be over identified or enmeshed with the
client and violate professional boundaries
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13. Summary of Potential Risk
• expect clients and/or other professionals to
meet their needs
• feel powerless and unable or unwilling to
risk making decisions and taking action.
• feel hopeless and project that onto clients or
other professionals
• experience anger when they view others
within the system as not doing “their job” or
anger at clients who are not compliant.
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14. Resources
Lipsky, Laura van Dernoot., and Connie
Burk. Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday
Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for
Others. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, 2009.
http://traumastewardship.com/
Dr. Jim Henry
Western Michigan University Children’s
Trauma Assessment Center
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15. Dolphin Stress
This was used to study stress levels at St. Mary’s Hospital.
The next picture contains 2 identical dolphins.
Notice the two dolphins jumping out of the water. The
dolphins are identical.
A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the
fact that the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would
find differences in the two dolphins.
The more differences found between the dolphins, the more stress
that person is experiencing.
Look closely at the photograph and if you find more than one or
two differences, you need to extend your summer vacation.
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16. 16

17. Common Warning Signs
of Trauma Exposure
(van Dernoot Lipsky, Burk, 2009)
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18. 18
Feeling Helpless and
Hopeless

19. 19
A Sense That One Can Never Do Enough

20. 20
Hyper vigilance

21. 21
Diminished creativity

22. 22
Inability to Embrace
Complexity

23. 23
Chronic Exhaustion

24. 24
Inability to Listen/
Deliberate Avoidance

25. 25
Sense of Persecution

26. 26
Anger and Cynicism

27. 27
Minimizing

28. 28
Grandiosity/Inflated Sense of
Self and Power

29. Organizational Stress
“Complex interaction between traumatized children,
stressed staff, pressured organizations, and
oppressive social and economic environment.”
(Bloom, 2005)
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30. So…..What can we do to
increase our own resiliency?
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31. A Strength based approach
•There are individuals who are able to work in a the abuse
environment over time and maintain their objectivity, energy
and passion and keep the focus on the children.
•What allows these individuals to remain child focused; to
remain positive and energized and to manage the potential
risks already identified?
There are several answers to these questions including:
Passion
Stress hardy personality characteristics
Emotional Intelligence
Staff question: I love my job and working with the children and
their families and I don’t stress out about it. Does this mean I
am not empathetic?
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32. Passion and your work
Being passionate about your job is more
than the old adage "do what you love“ or
“follow your dream.”
•Passion is a belief that you are doing
something meaningful.
•Passion motivates you to keep going
even when it is difficult.
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33. Passion and your work
How we can be passionate at our job?
•Exhibit passion in your work. Don’t just feel
passionate about your job– act passionately too.
•Be innovative in your work and in problem
solving. Try new and different approaches
•Be self driven and motivate. Don’t depend on
external sources for motivation
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34. Passion and your work
1. Passion produces energy.
An individual who has passion is driven forward
from the energy passion produces. When it
comes to leading yourself and others, passion
and energy are essential. Donald Trump said,
“Without passion, you don’t have energy;
without energy, you have nothing.” Leaders
who have passion also bring energy into what
they do.
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35. Passion and your work
2. Passion drives vision.
If a leader wants to see their vision and
goals being accomplished, then passion is
the fuel that drives the production and
results of the vision. The vision of the
organization or team should be frequently
and passionately communicated to others.
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36. Passion and your work
3. Passion ignites others.
The energy and passion of a leaders is
communicated and rubs off on others. This
results in others feeling and being more
energized and motivated. A person’s
passions can ignite other people’s
passions and bring energy into their lives.
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37. Passion and your work
4. Passion raises influence.
Passion impacts others. A passionate
leader gains influence with others, and
people want to be a part of what’s going
on. If you want to raise your influence,
then you need to be a passionate leader.
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38. Passion and your work
5. Passion provides potential.
Passion brings new opportunity and opens
the door to success. This is because when
you’re passionate about what you’re doing,
it moves you closer to your potential.
Moving you closer to your potential causes
you to be moving into the next level within
your career and personal journey.
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39. Building Resilience
Stress Hardy Personality Traits
Commitment
•Commitment means having a purpose to life and
involvement in family, work, community, social, friends,
religious faith, ourselves, etc., giving meaning to our
lives.
•When we have a commitment to something or someone
important to us, this gives our life a purpose.
•When committed to something we tend to be motivated
to put in more effort. This can help us to find a goodness
and meaning to our lives.
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40. Stress Hardy personality traits
Control
•Studies have shown that how much control we perceive we
have over any stressor will influence how difficult the stressor
will be for us to cope with.
•Researchers have found there are basically two types of
control, Internal or External which can either exacerbate or
reduce a stressful situation?
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41. Locus of Control: How a person
perceives the cause of life events
External locus of control people
•Believe that they have little or no control over what happens
to them; what happens is due to fate or destiny and that they
will not be able to influence it.
Internal locus of control people
•Know they cannot influence all the external events in their
lives, but have a deep sense of choice in how they react.
•Perceive self as responsible for certain occurrences and having
some influence over the event.
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42. Internal Locus of Control
•Feel in control over what happens in their lives, and tend to
accept responsibility as well as credit for their actions.
•Believe that their effort impacts their success in life and that
live events are not controlled by luck/fate, their genetic make-
up, or socioeconomic status.
In general, this attitude generates high motivation, effort,
perseverance, and a willingness to take risks. It goes without saying
that success is more likely with all these qualities present.
Research shows that with a few exceptions, the internal locus of
control is the healthier end of the spectrum.
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43. Stress Hardy personality traits
Challenge
Challenge is about how we perceive the events that occur
in our lives; seeing difficulties as a challenge rather than
a threat and accepting that the only thing in life that is
constant, is change.
If we view change as a total threat or see every difficulty
as threatening to us this may trigger a stronger
fight/flight response than if we see the event as a
challenge.
Stress hardy people don’t ruminate over change, they are
not frightened by it, they accept it as being a natural part
of life, not a threat but an opportunity to learn and grow.
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44. Stress Hardy personality traits
Coherence: A view that life makes sense,
including an ability to make sense of life’s
events.
Community: The ability to find a valued
place in a group of like minded individuals
sharing a vision.
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45. Building Resilience: Emotional
Intelligence (EQ)
Emotional Intelligence is “an array of non cognitive
capabilities, competencies, and skillsthat influence one’s
ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands
and pressures.”
Domains of EQ
Interpersonal: empathy, interpersonal relationships, social
responsibility
Adaptability: problem solving, reality testing, flexibility
Stress management: Stress tolerance and impulse control
General Mood: Happiness, Optimistic
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46. Building Resilience: Emotional
Intelligence (EQ)
• Why is EQ important?
• E.Q. predicts higher work performance three Xs
better than IQ
• Leadership is largely an emotional intelligence.
• All interaction can be gauged along a continuum
from emotionally toxic to nourishing
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47. The Good News
The good news is all of these concepts have the potential
to increase our ability to manage the secondary
traumatic stress inherent in working with abused
children. And, they can all be learned strength based
coping behaviors and responses.
What are the common characteristics of individuals
who have passion, who are stress hardy, have a high
EQ and how can we use this knowledge to strengthen
ourselves and our organization?
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48. Building/Strengthening Resiliency
•Have and act on passion for the work
•Internal locus of control
•Value and belief driven
•See adversity as a challenge or problems as
an opportunity
•See change as a natural part of life: flexible
•Optimistic
•Able to make sense out of life events
•High Emotional Quotient
•Share their vision and work with like minded
people
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49. Building/Strengthening Resiliency
• Respect themselves and others and have a spirit of
cooperation, looking for win-win solutions.
• Realize that no matter how the present situation
turns out, they will learn and grow from it.
• Are able to tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty, and
imperfection.
• Are reasonably optimistic, have a sense of humor
and though dedicated to doing things well, don’t
take themselves too seriously.
• Evaluate their ineffective ways of thinking and
behaving, and make appropriate changes.
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50. Actions to increase Resiliency
•Introduce concepts to others we work with
•Identify and highlight demonstrations of stress
hardiness, passion, etc.
•Apply identified behaviors when problem solving
•Help move self and others from “I can’t because”
to “we will by...specific actions.
•Help shift from what will you do for me to how
can I strengthen myself.
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51. Actions to increase Resiliency
• Organizations can look for these characteristics
when interviewing for new hires and volunteers.
• Increasing these characteristics can be the focus of
professional development.
• Leaders can model these characteristics and
reinforcement them in others.
• These characteristics can be discussed and valued
within an organization.
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52. R: Resilience or Rescuer?
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53. Building our own Resiliency
• Understanding the impact of our work
and our own vulnerabilities allows us to
prevent, ameliorate and transform the
negative impact of our work on our
selves.
• The following slides offer a guide to
thinking about you in your work and in
your life as you identify ways to
increase your own resiliency.
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54. Building Resiliency:
I. Willing to Ask the tough
questions to myself.
Who do I want to be at work now? What
were my intentions when I started
work?
– A toxic contributor or a toxic handler
• Easier to be a toxic contributor. Natural
consequence of being overwhelmed
• Being a toxic handler requires intentionality,
energy, and self awareness. A willingness to
work through my ongoing desire to avoid pain.
A reconnecting to why I do this work.
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55. Self Reflection
• Why am I doing what I’m doing?
• What is my intention
• Is this working for me?
• If I weren’t doing this work, what would I love
to do?
“Having a Plan B reminds us that what we do is
an act of free will. Plan B could involve a
career change, a new place to live, a fresh
approach to our current work, or a different life
altogether.”
(Lipsky 2009)
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56. Building Resiliency
II.Focusing/Mindfulness
• Being present and naming what is
happening in me (thoughts, feelings) at
this moment.
• Being present and naming what is
happening to that child or adult and
how that is affecting me and identifying
where in my body I am experiencing the
impact.
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57. Building Resiliency:
III.Compassion
Can I embrace my own helplessness
without blaming myself or others? I do
have limitations and I can appreciate
them.
If I cannot provide compassion to myself
can I really give it to others?
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58. Building Resiliency
IV. Collaborative Alliance
– “We are in this together!”
– “We are not our role but human beings.”
• The organizational culture significantly affects
the “collaborative alliance” in the office
• Continual reminders that we are all working
together toward a common goal: best interests
of the child.
• Recognition that workers, supervisors, and
administration are engaged in a similar
process of managing pain and navigating
organizational demands
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59. Building Resiliency:
V.Mastery/Efficacy
• Competency derives from maintaining
my compassion and doing what I need
to do regardless of the outcomes
• Ability to regulate negative emotion
when I am upset
• To recognize what can be controlled and
what cannot
• Belief that advocacy matters no
matter what the outcome
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60. Building Resilience
VI. Fueling Hopefulness
• Recognition that negativity is the norm and
default mode so I can be aware of what I am
doing.
• Moving from trying to control outcomes to
providing opportunities for change.
• Believing that others are doing the best they can.
• Acknowledging and learning from failure rather
than blaming.
• The little things I do may mean something
important to children and families in the future
despite what is happening in the present.
• Reminding myself of past successes 60

61. Thank You!
We celebrate you and your work
For what you do for the children
For believing that we can make a difference in the lives of abused children and
their families.
For further information, please contact:
Libby Ralston, Ph.D.
lralston@dnlcc.org
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62. Remember
Who We Work For!!
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