Secondary traumatic stress and trauma-informed practice in higher education students: an exploratory study

Abstract

The helping professions have long understood that secondary traumatic stress and its counterparts of burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma are a problem for workers in the field. However, less is known about the impact of the issue on students who have placements. Using the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale (STSS), this quantitative research study seeks to explore if a convenience sample of 45 students on two programmes in the field was affected. The results show several non-significant results, suggesting that the number of weekly caring responsibility hours did not predict perceived STSS scores after placement and that high-scoring students have shown no significant difference in STSS scores before and after placement. Overall, we also found that the subsample of ten students with caring responsibilities had higher STSS scores. The article discusses well-being in students generally, incorporating trauma-informed perspectives. While no students in this study were affected, the discussion examines what can be done to better support students from an ecological perspective to protect and prepare them for their placements and future careers. Finally, this article calls for policy and practice in education and the curricula of the helping professions to routinely incorporate awareness of the issues in training and supervision.