Conference on Secondary Trauma

On Wednesday, I had the privilege of speaking on a panel at a conference on secondary/vicarious trauma. Secondary trauma is a topic that child welfare professionals, as well as anyone working with traumatized children, need to know about and be aware of. Secondary trauma is the emotional difficulties that therapists and social workers experience when working with at risk populations, such as children who have histories of abuse and neglect. Many workers don't recognize the symptoms of secondary trauma and thus, it doesn't get dealt with. I experienced secondary trauma myself when I worked in foster care; I constantly felt rundown and exhausted, I had nightmares about my clients, I felt numb, and had emotionally disconnected from my work and relationships in my life because I was struggling to deal with the trauma I was seeing every day at work. 


It was an amazing and nerve-wracking experience to speak at the conference, and it ended up being a great experience and I can now officially say that I've spoken at a conference (hooray for being professional!). I will hopefully have more opportunities in the future to challenge myself professionally and be a part of such wonderful and important events.