Explore how indirect exposure to others’ trauma can affect clinicians and care teams. You’ll learn to tell the difference between secondary traumatic stress, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout, and recognize early warning signs in yourself and colleagues. The course blends bite-sized science with practical assessment tools (e.g., ProQOL, STSS), case discussions, and ethics around boundaries, supervision, and documentation.

By the end, you’ll have ready-to-use skills—brief grounding and somatic techniques, micro-debriefing scripts, caseload triage, and a personal sustainability plan. Put them to work immediately to reduce errors, improve client outcomes, and sustain empathy in settings like community mental health, hospitals, schools, crisis lines, and private practice. You’ll also gain strategies to advocate for trauma-responsive policies and cultivate a resilient, supportive team culture.

I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and educator with 30+ years at the intersection of mental health, trauma recovery, and community wellness. My work has included leading the National Alliance for Trauma Recovery Centers at UCSF, serving as Chief of Victim Services for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, directing the Survivor Center for the Prosecutors Alliance, and co‑founding the Youth Justice Institute. Across these roles I’ve supervised and trained front‑line providers, responded to mass violence, and built trauma‑informed, equity‑centered systems that address vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. I now teach in USF’s Graduate Counseling Psychology program and co‑direct the USF Center for Community Counseling and Wellness, continuing to support clinicians through training, consultation, and research on secondary traumatic stress.

This course grows directly from that experience. I’m passionate about helping practitioners recognize, prevent, and treat secondary trauma—in themselves, their teams, and their organizations—using practical, culturally responsive tools. Expect real cases from the field, evidence‑based strategies for resilience, and concrete skills in reflective supervision, boundaries, and organizational care. My goal is to help you sustain meaningful, ethical work with survivors while protecting your own wellbeing.