A6- Research Plan Overview

SECONDARY TRAUMATIC STRESS 1

Secondary Traumatic Stress in Professionals Who Work with Cases of Child Abuse

Abraham De La Cruz Doctor of Education - Community Care and Counseling- Marriage and Family, Liberty University EDCO747: Qualitative Methods of Research

Dr. Fred Milacci June 14, 2026

Secondary Traumatic Stress in Professionals Who Work with Cases of Child Abuse

Name: Abraham De La Cruz

Stage of Completion: Stage 2

I. Introduction

A. Problem Statement

1. Secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma among mental health professionals who work with child abuse cases create the central issue for this qualitative research plan. These often hear the stories of traumatic child abuse, read distressing reports, liaise with protective systems, and care for children.

a. The problem has occupational and service quality implications as demonstrated by Boyas et al. (2022), who illustrated that secondary traumatic stress is associated with health status, health outcomes, and health practices among child protection workers.

b. The findings of Kim et al. (2024) support the need to pay attention to public child welfare workers' role function and workforce stability because secondary traumatic stress is correlated with their intention to stay in the profession.

2. This topic is significant because, if not addressed, unhelpful secondary trauma can impact professional well-being, engaging with others in an empathetic way, clinical judgment, supervision needs, and long-term retention. Learning about it can enable agencies to grasp the realities of life for professionals and the supports they see as valuable.

a. Clark et al. (2024) showed that burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion satisfaction are associated with case work skills, which means worker well-being is associated with practice quality.

b. As child welfare social workers are exposed to, and are responsible for, burnout, they are doing so in silence, with competing demands, and with emotional work, as explained by Fuseini (2024).

3. The problem is that child abuse agencies and supervisors may not be aware of the way mental health workers describe experiencing secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma, how agency culture influences disclosure and coping, and what supports are helpful for mental health workers.

B. Purpose

1. This study aimsThe purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe mental health professionals' lived experiences in Texas who work with children who have been abused and who have been affected by secondary traumatic stress.

2. This study aims to uncover the meaning-making processes of participants with regard to repeated indirect trauma exposure, describe how supervision and agency culture influence participants, and identify practices that support them to continue ethical care.

C. General research questions

1. How do mental health professionals in Texas describe their experiences with secondary trauma while working with child abuse cases?

2. How do mental health professionals in Texas describe the impact of secondary traumatic stress on their professional practice, personal well beingwellbeing, and relationships?

3. How do mental health professionals in Texas describe the most effective personal, professional, and organizational strategies for coping with secondary trauma while sustaining ethical care? Comment by Milacci, Fred (Community Care and Counseling): Good.

D. Research Plan

1. A qualitative research plan will be employed for the study, as the inquiry will take a detailed look at the meanings, contexts, and lived experiences of participants, rather than just measurement. Creswell and Poth (2025) explained that qualitative research is suitable for problems that call for the participants' voice, complex understanding, and consideration of the setting.

2. A phenomenological approach will guide the study, as this topic is shared in the lived experience of professionals. Creswell and Poth (2025) state that qualitative inquiry is emergent and interconnected, and this is also the case in phenomenology, where interviews may be used to uncover common meaning in participants' accounts.

II. Review of Related Literature

A. Theoretical Framework

1. The study is based on the ontological, epistemological, axiological, and methodological assumptions for qualitative research. The study takes an ontological approach that assumes that professionals have multiple realities regarding trauma exposure, as their roles, caseloads, supervision, and personal meanings influence their experiences. Epistemologically, knowledge is produced when the researcher and participants interact. Interpretation is influenced by the values of researchers and ethical concerns regarding child abuse practice in an axiological manner. Methodologically, the study employs the broad questions and inductive analysis, as Creswell and Poth (2025) pointed out that qualitative research is often a process of refinement and understanding as data is collected and analyzed.

2. This study is based on the social constructivist worldview and the job demands resources theory. The social constructivist worldview is a good fit because the participants develop meaning from their repeated exposure to traumatic child abuse stories and organizational responses. Job demands resources theory is also relevant because Bakker and de Vries (2021) associated high job demands, limited resources, and burnout, and Aminihajibashi et al. (2024) related job demands and resources with burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion satisfaction, and turnover intention in child mental health therapists.

B. Important Thinkers/experts/theorists in this field of study

1. Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2025). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (5th ed.). Sage Publications.

a. The study defines when qualitative research is appropriate when the problem is exploratory and requires voice from participant(s), context, and a detailed description.

b. Their work helps to inform phenomenological design, general research questions, reflexivity, ethical planning, and the rigorous qualitative procedures.

2. Bakker, A. B., & De Vries, J. D. (2021). Job Demands–Resources theory and self-regulation: New explanations and remedies for job burnout.  Anxiety, Stress, & Coping,  34(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1797695

a. Bakker and de Vries (2021) outline how constant demands and scarce resources lead to strain and burnout, to provide a workplace lens.

b. Their theory allows the study to explore agency culture and supervision without pre-ordaining the participant experiences into any categories.

3. Fuseini, S. (2024). “Suffering in silence”: How social workers in child welfare practice experience and manage burnout.  Children and Youth Services Review,  166, 107939. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107939

a. Fuseini (2024) used qualitative approaches to explore burnout, silence, emotional labor, and competing practice demands.

b. This work contributes to the proposed study by demonstrating how professionals can privately cope with distress when disclosure is discouraged within their organizations.

C. Related Research

1. Boyas, J. F., Moore, D., Duran, M. Y., Fuentes, J., Woodiwiss, J., McCoy, L., & Cirino, A. (2022). Exploring the health of child protection workers: A call to action.  Health Promotion Perspectives,  12(4), 381. https://doi.org/10.34172/hpp.2022.50

a. This article contributes to the study by revealing the health and workforce impact of indirect trauma exposure.

b. Secondary traumatic stress, worker health, occupational support, and workforce wellness are key descriptors.

2. Clark, S. L., Miller, B., Akin, B. A., Barney, R. K., Grube, W., McArthur, V., ... & Mitchell, J. (2024). Examining associations between child welfare workforce well-being and utilization of casework skills with children and families.  Child Abuse & Neglect,  155, 106964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106964

a. This article assists with the study by relating worker well-being to the worker's engagement, assessment, case planning, and service quality.

b. Casework skills, compassion satisfaction, burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and practice quality are key descriptors.

3. Clark, S. L., Miller, B., Akin, B. A., Byers, K., Wright, K., Carr, K., & Hunt, M. K. (2025). Exploring the relationships between self-care and well-being outcomes among child welfare professionals.  Journal of Public Child Welfare,  19(1), 110–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2024.2306151

a. This article contributes to the discussion on coping strategies and workers' responsibility for their own well-being in the interview.

b. Self-care, well-being, burnout, compassion satisfaction, and professional coping are key descriptors.

4. Kim, J., Pierce, B., & Park, T. K. (2024). Secondary traumatic stress and public child welfare workers’ intention to remain employed in child welfare: The interaction effect of job functions.  Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance,  48(2), 136–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2023.2263518

a. This article contributes to the study by explaining the importance of retention and job function in directing the inquiry.

b. The study supports the need to study how role demands and agency expectations shape professionals’ descriptions of secondary trauma.

c. Some of the key descriptors are retention, role demands, job function, public child welfare, and secondary traumatic stress.

5. Ogata, A., & Ide-Okochi, A. (2025). Depression and related factors among public health nurses engaged in child neglect cases.  International Journal of Nursing Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2025.08.006

a. This article goes beyond social work and demonstrates that other helping professionals are impacted by child maltreatment work.

b. It extends the topic beyond social work and shows that high-risk child maltreatment cases can affect mental health across helping professions.

c. Key descriptors include child neglect, depression, public health nurses, high-risk cases, and work control.

6. Whittenbury, K., Clark, S. L., Brooks, M., Murphy, T., Turner, M. J., & Fawcett, H. (2025). Strengths for helping professionals exposed to secondary trauma: A scoping review.  Trauma, Violence, & Abuse,  26(2), 251–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241309371

a. This article encourages awareness of the concepts of protective resources, resilience, relationships, and meaning making.

b. The study supports interview attention to meaning making, regulation, interpersonal resources, and ecological strengths as possible coping supports

c. The key descriptors include strengths, protective resources, resilience, secondary trauma, and helping professionals.

7. Aminihajibashi, S., Jensen, T. K., & Skar, A. M. S. (2024). Exploring key job demands and resources in Norwegian child mental health services: a cross-sectional study of associations with and relationship between compassion satisfaction, burnout, secondary traumatic stress and turnover intention.  Frontiers in Public Health,  12, 1304345. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1304345

a. This article is supportive of the job demands resources lens, as it connects job demands to burnout, STS, CS, and ITI.

b. Key descriptors include child mental health, job demands, resources, secondary traumatic stress, and turnover intention.

III. Methods

A. Design (approach) and Rationale

1. The qualitative research will be based on the phenomenological design. The methodology is suitable for the research since the lived experience of secondary traumatic stress in mental health professionals dealing with child abuse cases in Texas is the primary focus of the research. Phenomenology fits well as the research does not aim to test a treatment, measure prevalence, or statistically compare agencies. Rather, it aims at rich descriptions of how participants feel indirectly exposed to child abuse stories, how they understand the emotional and professional impact of such exposure, and how they characterize what supports them to carry on ethical care. According to Creswell and Poth (2025), phenomenology is concerned with the meaning of a given phenomenon as several individuals understand it. Hence, this design is consistent with the purpose statement that has been corrected since the researcher is able to concentrate on a shared experience of professionals and, at the same time, respect the variations in how participants make sense of the experience.

2. This methodology is legitimate since secondary traumatic stress is highly personal, contextual, and hard to explain using only numerical indicators. Mental health workers might have had similar exposure, but they might explain other emotional reactions, coping styles, supervisory experiences, spiritual thoughts, and professional identity issues. Phenomenological research enables the investigator to conduct interviews with individuals who have undergone the phenomenon and subsequently uncover common meanings in their narratives. The design is also consistent with the recent literature that secondary traumatic stress is also linked to worker well-being, quality of casework, retention, and occupational support needs (Clark et al., 2024; Kim et al., 2024). Since Fuseini (2024) found that child welfare professionals tend to address distress quietly, a qualitative design will allow participants to discuss experiences that cannot be openly addressed in an agency context.

B. Site

1. The study site will be known as Lone Star Child Trauma Counseling Network.

2. The research will be conducted in Texas among a web of outpatient mental health, community counseling, and child advocacy-related professional environments. The site will not be a single actual agency name; rather, the pseudonym will be the professional setting in which participants will be recruited. Comment by Milacci, Fred (Community Care and Counseling): good

3. The environment will consist of urban and suburban Texas agencies or practices that work with children and families impacted by abuse, neglect, family violence, foster care involvement, or protective service referral. Potential settings can be outpatient trauma counseling centers, partner agencies with child advocacy centers, community mental health clinics, nonprofit family services programs, and private practices that receive child abuse-related referrals. The site context will involve professionals who work with culturally, racially, economically, and linguistically diverse children and families.

4. The other essential information about the site is that it is a sensitive work and that it is necessary to avoid identifying the agencies, workers, and clients. The study will not include any child clients, parents, minors, or case records. The interviews will be conducted via secure virtual meetings or in selected private locations to ensure confidentiality. The researcher will seek organizational authorization when recruitment is conducted by an agency. The agency's performance, however, will not be assessed as part of the study. The setting will serve as the work environment where the participants are exposed to child abuse.

C. Participants

1. The research will also involve about 12-15 mental health professionals. This is a suitable number to use in phenomenological inquiry, as it enables the profound exploration of participants' experiences while also allowing comparison between accounts.

2. Purposive criterion sampling and snowball sampling (limited) will be used to select the participants. The inclusion criteria will be as follows: participants must be at least 21 years old, be based in Texas, and be in a professional position, or have held a professional position that required direct or indirect assistance with child abuse cases. The participants should have at least 6 months of experience in offering counseling, assessment, case consultation, crisis response, advocacy, and treatment planning to children who have undergone abuse or neglect. The participants should also be capable of narrating secondary traumatic stress experiences relating to this work. Snowball sampling can be used if participants suggest other qualified professionals; participation will remain voluntary and confidential.

3. Certain professionals can be licensed professional counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, trauma therapists, clinicians of the child advocacy center, and provisionally licensed mental health professionals under supervision. The sample will consist of men and women, older and younger age groups, years of experience, and professional positions. The researchers will exclude employees who are administrators only and who have not been exposed to child abuse recently. It will also not include anybody who is directly supervised or controlled by the researcher to prevent coercion.

D. Role of Researcher or Personal Biography

1. The author of the research is Abraham De La Cruz.

2. The researcher is a doctoral student at Liberty University.

3. The researcher's academic experience encompasses counseling, family systems, qualitative research, and the well-being of helpers who work with vulnerable children and families. This history justifies the concern of the experiences of mental health professionals who must be responsible in providing ethical care and continue to be exposed to traumatic content many times. The researcher will take the approach of a learner seeking to understand participants' lived experiences rather than that of a researcher evaluating professional competence.

4. The researcher's values might affect the perspective on the topic. The researcher appreciates child safety, ethical counseling, trauma-informed care, and the dignity of professionals who operate in emotionally challenging environments. These values can help develop empathy, yet they can also form assumptions that agencies can be more supportive of. The researcher will employ the following methods to overcome this influence: reflexive journaling before and after interviewing, non-leading questions, bracketing personal assumptions, and inviting the participants to define support, distress, coping, and professional meaning in their own words. There will be no direct supervisees, employees, or any other person who might feel compelled to be recruited to take part in the research.

E. Data Collection

1. The first data collection method will be individual interviews with mental health professionals in Texas who work with child abuse cases.

a. All the participants will be interviewed in a semi-structured interview of about 60 to 75 minutes. The interview will be based on open-ended questions regarding the role of the participant, the exposure to child abuse-related material repeatedly, secondary traumatic stress experience, personal and professional influence, supervision, agency culture, coping, and support required. The interviews will be carried out using secure video conferencing or in a confidential place chosen to maintain confidentiality.

b. Audio recordings will be made and interviews transcribed to be analyzed with the permission of the participants. When clarification is required, a short follow-up interview can be conducted, lasting about 20 to 30 minutes. Participants will be reminded not to disclose client names, agency identifiers, case numbers, or protected health information. This approach is significant since the phenomenological research relies on detailed descriptions of a common lived experience by participants.

2. The second data collection method will be a brief participant reflection.

a. Following the interview, we will ask each participant to write about 300 to 500 words of reflection. The reflection will request the participants to share a professional support that has assisted them in coping with secondary traumatic stress and a support they would have liked to have in the course of working with cases of child abuse.

b. Written instructions will be given to the participants that they are not supposed to include identifiable client data, agency names, case data, or protected health data. Such an approach will enable participants to include thoughts they may have recalled during the interview and to reflect more deeply on coping, supervision, agency culture, and professional sustainability.

3. The third data collection method will be contextual document review. Comment by Milacci, Fred (Community Care and Counseling): Actually I don’t think this would be the best method—focus groups (maybe 2-4) would be good with this topic and these participants

a. The investigator can look at publicly available or provided by participants nonconfidential documents that detail professional support, supervision, trauma-informed care, staff wellness, or continuing education of secondary traumatic stress. These can be in the form of public agency wellness statements, training descriptions, staff support materials, or publicly available pages that describe trauma-informed services.

b. The researcher will not examine client records, personal supervision notes, personnel files, agency internal reports, or any confidential health data. Such an approach will assist the researcher in gaining a glimpse of the professional context of participants' experiences without judging the agencies involved or revealing confidential information.

F. Data Analysis

1. 1st Technique (i.e., open coding)

a. information about it (i.e., organizing data into…)

b. specific information on how this process will be done

c. why important (i.e., this process allows the researcher to…)

2. 2nd Technique (i.e., constant comparison method of looking at data…)

G. Trustworthiness (the reliability, dependability, and transferability of information goes here)

1. 1st Technique (i.e., member checks)

a. information about it (i.e., having participants review and respond to…)

b. why important (i.e., this process increases the reliability of the study because…)

2. 2nd Technique (i.e., audit trail)

a. information about it

b. why important

3. 3rd Technique (i.e., reflexivity or memoing)

a. information about it

b. why important

c. and so on…

H. Ethical Considerations

1. potential issue and how addressed (i.e., negative results could impact the school/researcher, used pseudonyms for all participants and identifiable names)

2. potential issue and how addressed

3. protection of data

References

Aminihajibashi, S., Jensen, T. K., & Skar, A. M. S. (2024). Exploring key job demands and resources in Norwegian child mental health services: a cross-sectional study of associations with and relationship between compassion satisfaction, burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and turnover intention.  Frontiers in Public Health,  12, 1304345. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1304345

Bakker, A. B., & De Vries, J. D. (2021). Job dDemands–Resources theory and self-regulation: New explanations and remedies for job burnout.  Anxiety, Stress, & Coping,  34(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2020.1797695

Boyas, J. F., Moore, D., Duran, M. Y., Fuentes, J., Woodiwiss, J., McCoy, L., & Cirino, A. (2022). Exploring the health of child protection workers: A call to action.  Health Promotion Perspectives,  12(4), 381. https://doi.org/10.34172/hpp.2022.50

Clark, S. L., Miller, B., Akin, B. A., Barney, R. K., Grube, W., McArthur, V., ... & Mitchell, J. (2024). Examining associations between child welfare workforce well-being and utilization of casework skills with children and families.  Child Abuse & Neglect,  155, 106964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106964

Clark, S. L., Miller, B., Akin, B. A., Byers, K., Wright, K., Carr, K., & Hunt, M. K. (2025). Exploring the relationships between self-care and well-being outcomes among child welfare professionals.  Journal of Public Child Welfare,  19(1), 110–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2024.2306151

Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2025). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (5th ed.). Sage Publications.

Fuseini, S. (2024). “Suffering in silence”: How social workers in child welfare practice experience and manage burnout.  Children and Youth Services Review,  166, 107939. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107939

Kim, J., Pierce, B., & Park, T. K. (2024). Secondary traumatic stress and public child welfare workers’ intention to remain employed in child welfare: The interaction effect of job functions.  Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance,  48(2), 136–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2023.2263518

Ogata, A., & Ide-Okochi, A. (2025). Depression and related factors among public health nurses engaged in child neglect cases.  International Journal of Nursing Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2025.08.006

Whittenbury, K., Clark, S. L., Brooks, M., Murphy, T., Turner, M. J., & Fawcett, H. (2025). Strengths for helping professionals exposed to secondary trauma: A scoping review.  Trauma, Violence, & Abuse,  26(2), 251–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241309371

Appendix A: Interview Questions/Guide

1. To begin, please tell me about your professional role and the kind of work you do with children or families affected by abuse. Comment by Milacci, Fred (Community Care and Counseling): Since we are trying to create a conversation, start interview with an ice breaker

2. How would you describe secondary traumatic stress in your own words based on your professional experience?

3. Please describe an experience, without naming any client or case details, that helped you recognize the emotional weight of child abuse-related work.

4. How has repeated exposure to child abuse narratives affected your professional practice?

5. How has this work affected your personal well-being, relationships, faith, or sense of meaning?

6. How do supervision and consultation shape the way you process secondary traumatic stress?

7. How does agency culture influence whether professionals talk openly about stress, emotional fatigue, or support needs?

8. What personal coping strategies have helped you continue this work?

9. What professional or organizational supports have helped you provide ethical and effective care?

10. What changes would you recommend for agencies that employ professionals who work with child abuse cases?

11. What else would you like me to understand about the lived experience of secondary traumatic stress in this work?

Appendix B: Other Data Collection Procedures

Data Collection Procedure	Purpose	Procedure	Protection of Participants and Data
Participant's written reflection	This procedure will give participants an opportunity to add meaning after the interview and describe supports that help them cope with secondary traumatic stress.	Each participant will write a reflection of approximately 300-500 words after the interview. The reflection will ask participants to describe one helpful support and one missing support related to their work with child abuse cases.	Participants will be instructed not to include client names, agency names, case numbers, or protected health information. Reflections will be stored securely with interview data.
Contextual document review	This procedure will help the researcher understand the professional setting and the kinds of support language available in participant work contexts.	The researcher may review public or participant-provided nonconfidential documents, such as wellness statements, supervision descriptions, staff support materials, trauma-informed care resources, or continuing education descriptions.	The researcher will not collect client files, personnel records, private supervision notes, internal agency reports, or any protected health information. Documents will be identified by general type rather than agency name.
Follow-up clarification contact	This procedure will help the researcher clarify unclear meanings from the interview or written reflection.	The researcher may contact a participant once for a brief follow-up conversation or written clarification. This contact will focus only on clarifying the participant’s own meaning.	The follow-up will remain voluntary. Participants may decline to answer any question, and no identifying client or agency information will be requested.

Appendix C Timeline and Budget

Be specific. Here is an example:

August 2025—Finish coursework ($ for these items)

September 2025—Get committee together and register for dissertation course EDCO 988 ($)

Spring 2026—Defend proposal ($)

Summer 2026—Submit research plan to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval ($)

And so on…

Appendix D Consent Form

Include a robust, substantive consent form; check out Liberty’s IRB Website for example(s). Do you need one for various participants? If you need one for students/minors, it is called an ‘assent form.’

Appendix C Timeline and Budget

Be specific. Here is an example:

August 2025—Finish coursework ($ for these items)

September 2025—Get committee together and register for dissertation course EDCO 988 ($)

Spring 2026—Defend proposal ($)

Summer 2026—Submit research plan to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval ($)

And so on…

Appendix D Consent Form

Include a robust, substantive consent form; check out Liberty’s IRB Website for example(s). Do you need one for various participants? If you need one for students/minors, it is called an ‘assent form.’