Child welfare workers: An innovative approach for interacting with secondary trauma

Although child welfare workers (CWW) are assigned a critical role to protec t children, little focus has been placed on helping them cope with stress a nd secondary trauma that can occur when they observe and hear the affect-la den experiences described by clients. This article summarizes two focus gro ups which provided data to develop a two day training module for CWW to gai n knowledge and skills through didactic and experiential learning. The mode l offers coping strategies to respond to job stress and vicarious traumatiz ation. Benefits and implications for agency and school collaboration are di scussed.