Too Tired to Care: A Quantitative Study on Shift Length for Direct Care Workers at Residential Treatment Centers and how it relates to Compassion Fatigue and Compassion Satisfaction

Indianapolis, IN

Residential treatment centers house some of the most vulnerable children, the children society sometimes deems as unworthy. These facilities hire direct care workers, also referred to as house parents, who are the people who invest heavily into the lives of the children and adolescents they are privileged to work with. Direct care workers have the most contact with these children as they are supervising them during their day to day activities. The demands on workers require them to be emotionally stable while they teach the children how to regulate their own emotions (Freudenberger, 1977). Staff work long hours with few, if any breaks, which leads them little time to practice self-care, an important skill for any mental health professional. When staff do not practice self-care they can often develop compassion fatigue, a result of the combination of secondary trauma and burnout. This study will examine the level of compassion fatigue direct care workers experience using the Professional Quality of Life scale. This scale measures compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary trauma. Direct care workers will be surveyed at two different Indiana residential treatment centers. One facility uses an eight hour rotating shift schedule while the other uses a 16 hour rotating shift schedule. The surveys will be compared to see if the protective factors put in place for staff who work 16 hour shifts result in the same level of compassion fatigue as the staff who work eight hour shifts.