Every day, victim advocates, therapists, attorneys, law enforcement officers, medical professionals, educators, social workers, and countless others step into the darkest moments of another person’s life.
We listen to accounts of violence, abuse, exploitation, grief, and betrayal. Help survivors navigate systems that are often confusing, exhausting, and painfully slow. Carry stories that cannot simply be forgotten when the workday ends.
We do this work because we care deeply. But caring deeply does not make us immune to trauma.
International Self-Care Day, observed every July 24, represents the need to practice self-care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That symbolism matters. Self-care cannot be something we consider once a year, after a crisis, or only when we have already reached the point of complete exhaustion. It must become part of how we live and how we sustain ourselves in work that asks so much of us.
For those who care for victims and survivors of crime, self-care is not selfish. It is not weakness. It is not an indulgence.
During my entire career as a victim advocate to this day when I provide trainings, I remind people that we have an ethical obligation to our clients. I have printed and laminated that quote for everyone I have ever worked with.
The Cost of Caring Is Real
Vicarious trauma occurs when repeated exposure to other people’s traumatic experiences begins to change how we see ourselves, others, and the world.
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network defines secondary traumatic stress as the emotional distress that can result from hearing about another person’s firsthand trauma. The effects may resemble symptoms experienced by people who were directly exposed to a traumatic event.
Vicarious trauma may appear as:
- Emotional exhaustion or numbness
- Irritability, anger, or impatience
- Difficulty sleeping or recurring thoughts about cases
- Feeling hopeless about people, institutions, or justice
- Becoming unusually protective of loved ones
- Withdrawing from colleagues, friends, or family
- Losing empathy or feeling disconnected from survivors
- Physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension, fatigue, or digestive problems
- Using alcohol, food, work, shopping, or other behaviors to avoid difficult emotions
- Wondering whether the work still matters
Burnout and vicarious trauma are related, but they are not identical. Burnout often develops from excessive workloads, inadequate resources, poor management, and chronic workplace stress. Vicarious trauma comes from sustained exposure to the trauma of others.
Many victim-service professionals experience both.
We must stop treating these reactions as evidence that someone is “not strong enough” for the work. They are predictable human responses to repeated trauma exposure and unsustainable working conditions.
Self-Care Cannot Fix a Harmful Workplace
We should also be honest: no amount of yoga, meditation, or deep breathing can compensate for chronic understaffing, unreasonable caseloads, inadequate supervision, low pay, unsafe working conditions, or an organizational culture that celebrates self-sacrifice.
The responsibility cannot rest solely on individual professionals.
The Office for Victims of Crime’s Vicarious Trauma Toolkit recognizes that organizations have an essential role in addressing the effects of trauma exposure. Agencies that serve victims must become trauma-informed not only in how they treat survivors, but also in how they treat their employees.
Organizations should provide:
- Manageable caseloads and meaningful time away from work
- Regular supervision that addresses emotional impact, not only productivity
- Access to confidential counseling and employee-assistance services
- Opportunities for peer consultation and case debriefing
- Training on vicarious trauma, burnout, boundaries, and resilience
- Leadership that models taking breaks and using leave
- Clear procedures for responding after especially difficult cases
- A culture in which asking for help does not threaten someone’s credibility or career
Self-care matters, but institutional care matters too.
We will not retain talented victim advocates by praising their commitment while continually asking them to work beyond their emotional and physical capacity.
Daily Self-Care for Victim-Service Professionals
Self-care does not have to be elaborate, expensive, or time-consuming. The most effective practices are often small, intentional, and consistent.
Create a transition between work and home
Develop a routine that signals the end of the workday. Take a brief walk, change your clothes, listen to music, sit quietly in your car, or write down unfinished concerns before leaving. Remind yourself: “I have done what I can for today. I can return to this tomorrow.”
Protect your boundaries
Being committed to survivors does not require being available every hour of every day. When possible, turn off work notifications, avoid repeatedly reviewing case materials at home, and communicate realistic expectations about response times.
Boundaries do not diminish compassion. They protect it.
Pay attention to your body
Trauma exposure does not live only in our thoughts. It can appear in clenched muscles, shallow breathing, headaches, nausea, fatigue, restlessness, and disrupted sleep.
Drink water. Eat regularly. Move your body. Stretch between interviews. Step outside. Breathe slowly before opening the next file. Schedule medical and mental-health appointments before you reach a crisis.
Use your support system
Identify the people with whom you can be honest. This might include a therapist, supervisor, mentor, trusted colleague, faith leader, recovery community, or close friend.
Protect survivor confidentiality, but do not isolate yourself from support.
Reconnect with life beyond trauma
Make deliberate room for experiences that remind you the world also contains safety, humor, creativity, love, and joy. Spend time with people who do not need anything from you. Read something unrelated to work. Garden, cook, exercise, create art, attend a concert, watch something funny, or rest without trying to make the time “productive.”
Conduct regular self-checks
Ask yourself:
- What am I carrying today?
- What belongs to me, and what belongs to the people I serve?
- What is my body trying to tell me?
- Am I becoming numb, cynical, fearful, or unusually reactive?
- What support do I need before this becomes a crisis?
Seeking professional help is not a failure of self-care. Sometimes it is the most important act of self-care we can take.
Self-Care for Survivors of Crime
Survivors often receive messages, directly or indirectly. that healing should occur on someone else’s timetable. It does not.
You do not owe anyone a particular version of recovery. You are allowed to have good days, difficult days, setbacks, anger, grief, relief, and joy. Healing is rarely a straight line.
Self-care for survivors may include:
- Choosing when, how, and with whom to share your story
- Limiting contact with people who question, blame, or pressure you
- Asking an advocate to help with court, medical, or institutional processes
- Taking breaks from news coverage, social media, or public discussion of similar cases
- Creating a safety plan and identifying trusted sources of support
- Establishing routines around sleep, food, movement, and medication
- Using grounding techniques when memories or physical reactions become overwhelming
- Working with a trauma-informed therapist, when accessible
- Reclaiming activities, relationships, places, or traditions that bring comfort
- Allowing yourself to experience joy without guilt
Self-care does not mean pretending the harm did not occur. It means supporting your mind and body as you live through what happened and determine what healing looks like for you.
Self-Care for Parents and Caregivers of Child Victims
When a child experiences abuse or violence, parents and caregivers may experience their own trauma reactions. They may feel rage, guilt, helplessness, grief, fear, or an overwhelming need to remain constantly vigilant.
Many parents blame themselves, even when another person alone made the decision to harm their child.
Supporting a child through an investigation, medical treatment, therapy, school accommodations, or court proceedings can consume an entire family’s life. Parents may suppress their own emotions because they believe their child’s needs must always come first.
But children benefit from caregivers who have support.
Parents and caregivers can practice self-care by:
- Finding their own therapist, support group, or trusted confidant
- Processing intense emotions away from the child when appropriate
- Allowing advocates and professionals to help carry logistical burdens
- Maintaining predictable family routines whenever possible
- Accepting practical help with meals, transportation, childcare, or household responsibilities
- Taking breaks from researching the case or repeatedly reviewing evidence
- Avoiding pressure on the child to discuss what happened
- Making room for ordinary family activities that are unrelated to the trauma
- Reassuring the child that the abuse was not the child’s fault
- Reminding themselves that responsibility belongs to the person who caused the harm
A parent does not need to appear perfectly calm at all times. Children need honesty, stability, safety, and reassurance, not perfection.
We Must Sustain the People Who Sustain Survivors
People enter victim services because they believe survivors deserve safety, dignity, accountability, and justice. That commitment is powerful, but commitment alone cannot protect someone from chronic trauma exposure.
We cannot continue to lose experienced advocates, investigators, counselors, attorneys, nurses, and other professionals because they believed exhaustion was proof of dedication.
International Self-Care Day should be more than a social media post or an annual reminder to take a bubble bath. It should prompt a serious commitment from individuals, supervisors, organizations, and entire systems.
Check on the people who spend their lives checking on everyone else.
Encourage them to use their leave. Support them when they set boundaries. Create workplaces where asking for help is treated as wisdom, not weakness. Make room for rest before someone reaches complete exhaustion.
Most importantly, give yourself permission to receive the same patience, compassion, and care that you so freely offer to others.
The work matters.
Survivors matter.
And so do the people who stand beside them.