| Victim advocates, by nature of their work, are consistently exposed to trauma, crisis, and victimization (Jones, 1997). With this exposure, both during crisis and non-crisis situations and the advocates' constant contact with their victim clients, they are at an increased risk of experiencing compassion fatigue because of their emotional and psychological involvement (Sprang, Clark, & Whitt-Woosley, 2007). Not only can compassion fatigue affect how advocates interact with their clients, but it can also affect their health, their relationships in and outside of the work environment, and can result in the advocate feeling like there is no way out except for leaving their employment, seeking a position that won't be as detrimental to them as victim advocacy (Mathieu, 2012). Victim Services organizations understand the natural risk of advocacy work and the risk that its advocates face. Scholarly literature has been written addressing the issue of compassion fatigue and the social sciences professions (Mathieu, 2012), and research has been conducted focusing upon the effectiveness the peer support groups can have on reducing or preventing compassion fatigue (Bourassa & Clements, 2010). Regardless of the scholarly research conducted, there is a lack of qualitative research that gains the opinions and understandings of victim advocates as to how they view these programs. For that reason, the focus of this study is aimed at gaining how victim advocates view organizational peer support groups for reducing or preventing compassion fatigue. For this research study, I have designed and conducted in-person interviews with two different victim advocacy organizations in the State of Arizona. These interviews sought out the insight and knowledge of the full-time victim advocates on different topics, such as self-care practices, in order to gain a complete understanding of their positions, their work environment and how they view the effectiveness of organizational peer support groups for reducing or preventing compassion fatigue from happening to them or to others inside their organization. |
