This booklet by Dr Bruce Perry, ChildTrauma Academy, presents an overview of the topic of secondary trauma. The goal is a better understanding of how to better serve the children we work with by making sure we are at our best. The better we understand how working with traumatised children affects us both personally and professionally, the better able we will be to serve them.

In order to remain emotionally healthy ourselves, it is critically important that we understand how the elements of a child's trauma of children can be absorbed. All professionals working with traumatised children can learn approaches and strategies to protect themselves from being emotionally overwhelmed by this work. In the end, the ability to help traumatised children depends on our ability to stay emotionally healthy and motivated in difficult and often very frustrating situations.

Read 'The Cost of Caring'

Dr Bruce Perry is the senior fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy, adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, and serves as the inaugural Senior Fellow of the Berry Street Childhood Institute. He has worked worked as a clinician and researcher with traumatised children and consulted on high-profile incidents involving traumatised children, including the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

- Find out more about the Child Trauma Academy