Stress and Secondary Trauma

Pandemics are not new, but they significantly impact how we work, socialize, and manage our health.  This can be especially difficult for those in the helping professions for whom face-to-face contact and travel are part of their daily routine. This blog post explains what a pandemic is and the stress that it causes. To learn more, watch this 25-minute excerpt from a recent QIC-WD webinar.

Optimism, or positive thinking, can be learned and is important to building resilience. By developing a practice of reframing and controlling self-defeating statements automatic negative thoughts can be replaced with positive ones. By focusing on the positive, individuals are more apt to remain hopeful, resilient, and focus their energy on things they are able to control.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services’ Children and Family Services (CFS) partnered with the QIC-WD to strengthen its child welfare workforce. The team created CFS Strong to address secondary traumatic stress (STS). This video features CFS staff discussing how STS impacts their job and how CFS Strong is designed to address it. The QIC-WD is studying this intervention and will report on evaluation results in the future.