Vicarious Trauma: Best Practices for Serving and Honoring Sexual Abuse Victims

This presentation was part of day 1 of the 5th Annual Symposium.

As unaccompanied child advocates, our role is to provide support and honor the stories of all immigrant children. Many of those stories include graphic scenes of violence and abuse they have experienced in their lives. The first part of the presentation will include best practices for honoring the stories of sexual abuse victims and helping create a safe space. The second part of the presentation will explore vicarious trauma, the passage of trauma, or experiencing second-hand trauma, from someone’s story. Amid honoring their stories and voice, it can be possibly triggering for advocates. As humans, we feel empathy, and many can connect with victims of sexual abuse through shared experiences. This can cause extreme fatigue, burn-out, and periods of depression. This presentation will offer different practices, both self-caring and self-soothing, as well as the differences and benefits of the two respectively. Through these practices, we can ensure that we have a grounded perspective to honor the experiences of minors when presenting their legal cases, while also honoring our needs to be better advocates. This presentation covers the importance of self-care for advocates working with unaccompanied children and prepares advocates, so that this work can be sustainable.