Self-Care: The Antidote to Compassion Fatigue

Eight-year-old Joe habitually falls asleep in Ms. Peterson's class. After witnessing this several times, Ms. Peterson asks Joe why it is happening and learns he is often awakened at night by the sounds of his mother screaming and pleading as his father, under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, strikes her repeatedly.

Twelve-year-old Kristin in Mr. Wilson's class finds it difficult to concentrate on math. Mr. Wilson asks Kristin what he can do to help. With tears in her eyes, Kristin quietly explains that last night, while her mother was out running an errand, her stepfather forced himself upon her, again, and threatened, "Tell anyone and I swear, I will kill you and your mother."

Principal Daniels receives a call on his radio as the day wraps up; the call indicates that a bus from his school has been involved in a head-on crash. The car driver who ran into the bus was killed on-site. The bus driver and several students are injured. Principal Daniels jumps in his car and immediately heads to the crash scene to help with triage and support.

The incidents described above are just three examples shared with me of the kinds of school-based trauma that education leaders, as helping professionals and first responders, encounter every day. And as these leaders have experienced, daily exposure to such trauma comes at a cost: It can result in secondary traumatic stress (STS) or, more commonly, compassion fatigue. It is essential that education leaders "seek to understand more about the effects of trauma, individual coping, and the systemic supports needed to assist educators" (Johnson, 2016) who are impacted by primary and secondary trauma.