Compassion fatigue increases stress resulting in lost productivity, staff turnover, and overall poor organizational health. Professionals in behavioral health or “helping profession” settings are at risk for developing secondary traumatic stress, depression, and/or burnout as they attend to others’s needs.  Professional’s needs are often overlooked in discussions about addressing compassion fatigue in the workforce. Priorities for clinicians, recovery support specialists, and caregivers are to interact with their clients to promote and model healthy coping behaviors. 

The aim Part II - Alleviating Distress: Providing Compassion when Exhausted  is to increase the capacity of behavioral health professionals to identify the interrelated components of  compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and secondary trauma with a focus on strategies that are critical to wellness and increasing resilience.