Prevalence and correlates of compassion fatigue among Year Coordinators in Australian secondary schools

Abstract

The study of compassion fatigue in the education sector is an emerging area of research in Australia and abroad. Given rising rates of psychological distress among young Australians, challenges related to teacher shortages, and reported increases in the rate of burnout among educators, research is needed to understand the impacts of compassion fatigue on educator populations in order to safeguard the teaching workforce. One group of educators who may be at heightened risk of compassion fatigue are Year Coordinators: a role within Australian secondary schools responsible for overseeing the wellbeing of students, and one that educators take on concurrent with classroom teaching. The purpose of this research, the first national study of its kind in Australia, was to examine the prevalence and severity of compassion fatigue among Australian secondary school Year Coordinators, as well as to investigate the relationship between compassion fatigue and potential correlates in this context. The conceptual framework which guided this study was adapted from the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014, 2017) and the theory of Secondary Traumatic Stress (Ludick & Figley, 2017): theories which examine the mechanisms impacting on employee wellbeing and the development of compassion fatigue. The study employed an embedded, sequential mixed methods design. Findings reveal that compassion fatigue is a significant “occupational hazard” (Figley, 1995, p. 17) for Australian Year Coordinators. Results indicate that Year Coordinators are experiencing very high levels of both secondary traumatic stress and burnout: two central components of compassion fatigue (Stamm, 2010). Participating teachers’ gender identity and reported caseload were shown to have a strong positive association with compassion fatigue on both measures. Conversely, participants’ age, their engagement in self-care practices, their social supports, their levels of compassion satisfaction and their sense of emotional separation were found to have a strong negative association with compassion fatigue. Findings further reveal that prevailing socio-cultural norms have accentuated the mismatch between the pressures and expectations faced by Year Coordinators and the job/personal resources available to support them. Findings from this study may be used by schools to identify staff at risk of compassion fatigue so that schools may take up measures to protect staff from the deleterious effects of supporting students with high levels of need.

Date of Award	2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Western Sydney University
Supervisor	Jacqueline Ullman (Supervisor), Tania Ferfolja (Supervisor) & Nida Denson (Supervisor)