Vicarious Trauma Among Social Workers, Attorneys, and Allied Professionals in Immigrant Services and Asylum

Background and Purpose:

Very limited research currently exists examining vicarious trauma among immigrant service providers in different professions. While there has been some research exploring the experience of social workers or attorneys in various immigrant services settings, this paper discusses the lived experience of vicarious trauma in client service provision across these allied professions. Through phenomenological analyses of oral history interview data, the authors explore examples of vicarious trauma that social workers and attorneys encounter in their work and make recommendations to strengthen workforce education and training.

Methods:

Oral history interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of social workers and attorneys recruited through professional associations and networks in New York City and surrounding communities. Participants were predominantly female (female 84%, male 16%) and from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Semi-structured interviewing was used to explore both participants’ life-historical trauma and experience of trauma vicariously in the provision of services to immigrants and refugees. Phenomenological methods were employed in the analysis of data and in mapping out the structure of experience for each participant. Oral history methods limited generalizing of data beyond individual structures of experience and examples.

Findings:

Data analyses revealed that each participant described forms of vicarious trauma, or burnout or compassion fatigue. Examples that participants reported included experiences that stayed with them over time or affected them in deeply personal ways. Participants described irritability, sleep disturbances, inability to stop thinking about clients, sense of responsibility for clients, anger, physical trauma responses (for example, chest tightening, gastrointestinal issues), disillusionment with the immigration system, and frequent and recurring exposure to gender-based and other violence via their clients. Many participants also described cross-cultural connections with clients from diverse backgrounds. Several participants who were immigrants or children of immigrants indicated that their experience of trauma vicariously brought up childhood or adulthood traumas of their own. Variations in trauma-informed workforce education and training received by participants also emerged in their life histories.

Conclusion and Implications:

Immigration work can be inherently traumatic across settings including at the border, in immigration detention centers or correctional facilities, or in community-based settings.

Findings highlight the need for expanding the capabilities of a trauma-informed workforce across the professions in the provision of social and legal services to immigrants and their families. Advocacy for increased funding is identified as critically important in enabling the realization of goals to ensure safe environments that mitigate trauma and suffering for immigrants and refugees and the professionals who are serving them.