11.2. Wellbeing Support for Staff

The wellbeing of staff members can have significant impacts on the quality of care provided to survivors of trafficking in persons. Good practice in service provision calls not only for attention to the care and support needs of survivors, but also the needs of the staff working with those survivors. The impacts of staff wellbeing flow through to interactions with survivors, colleagues, and other stakeholders.

Support for staff improves support for survivors.

As well as supporting general staff wellbeing, support should specifically seek to identify and minimise risks of burnout and vicarious trauma, and respond appropriately where this does occur.

• Burnout is an emotional exhaustion that results from repeatedly seeing and hearing distressing events and stories.[1] Burnout is more severe than regular daily stresses and has three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and feelings of reduced professional ability. Burnout develops gradually over time.[2]
• Vicarious trauma, otherwise known as secondary trauma or compassion fatigue, is an emotional stress experienced by those who are repeatedly exposed to descriptions of severe psychological and physical abuse. Vicarious trauma is a reaction to continuous exposure to victims and survivors of trauma and their stories, causing trauma to the listener, and results from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors.

[1] Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, ‘National Guidelines for the Provision of Psychosocial Support for Gender Based Violence Victims/Survivors’ (Republic of Uganda,

[2] See World Health Organisation, ‘Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases’ (WHO, 28 May 2019), available here.