ABSTRACT
While there has been substantial interest in the phenomena of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue, the organization and availability of resources is still emerging. There are organizations and individuals who have done considerable work in this field and listed below are some of the resources available to those who are interested in or are experiencing vicarious trauma. We faced a number of challenges while compiling the list of resources. Most of the information was obtained from Internet websites and not all organizations could be contacted directly for their input. Some of the entities are well-known to practitioners in the field but for those new to these areas, the names might not be familiar. It was also a challenge to identify people and groups who have been making significant efforts in a diverse and changing world of resources. In this chapter, we attempt to provide an objective account of the nature of services offered by these organizations, but for more specific queries, these organizations should be contacted directly. The resources cited in this chapter are limited to those based in the United States and some parent organizations are described in the next chapter, chapter 14, on the resources for disaster response. We note that some of these organizations or services are non-profit while others are for-profit. The organizations are divided into private and governmental/professional organizations, and we included a subcategory of private organizations providing caregiving support services as we believe that this is an important specialized area of indirect trauma. We have listed some current printed literature that can build a broader base of understanding of the phenomena of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. These books or chapters can be used as an adjunct to this text. Descriptions are adapted from online and printed resources listed immediately following each program summary.
