ABSTRACT
What Kendra and Andy do not realize is that, because they do their jobs so well, they are experiencing secondary traumatic stress symptoms. They care about the children with whom they work, and that caring opens them up to becoming victims, much like the children they try to protect. This chapter will be organized to provide the reader with specific information about this condition. First, we will offer a brief, necessarily limited review of the literature to set the stage. Next, we will describe the experiences of one group of child protective service (CPS) professionals who participated in a quantitative and qualitative study that focused on the extent of secondary traumatic stress and the personal and family characteristics that appear to predispose them to or insulate them from these problems. Following a brief summary of this informative research, we will provide some suggestions given both directly and indirectly by the women and men who participated in this study about how agencies, supervisors, and professionals themselves can deal with this risk.
