An examination of the relationships between professional quality of life, adverse childhood experiences, resilience, and work environment in a sample of human service providers

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Adverse childhood experiences Professional quality of life Resilience Human service professionals The current study investigated the relationship between ACEs, resilience, and work environment and professional quality of life including compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary trauma stress among a group of child welfare professionals working with children in the foster care system. Participants were 192 professionals representing 48 organizations providing a range of services for children residing in foster care within a large metropolitan area in the southern USA. Data showed that professionals had more ACEs than the norm sample (4 or more ACEs: 25.1% v. 12.5%). However, contrary to our hypotheses, regression analysis revealed that individuals with more ACEs had higher compassion satisfaction and lower rates of burnout. Moreover, number of ACEs was not significantly related to secondary traumatic stress. The variables found most predictive of poor professional quality of life were low levels of resilience and controlling organizational leadership. Ways to improve professional quality of life amid human service professionals and practical implications of these findings are discussed. 1. ACEs and its effects The adverse childhood experiences study established a connection between childhood trauma or adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and adult behavioral and health outcomes. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study questionnaire includes 10 questions that ask respondents to report whether they had experiences considered to be psychological , physical, and/or sexual abuse; or exposure to violence against the respondent's mother, mental illness, criminal behavior, alcohol abuse, and/or drug abuse during their first 18 years of life (Felitti et al., 1998). Exposure of the developing brain to stress can result in lasting impairment in multiple neurological structures and functions. Specifically , a wide range of long-term neurobiological and epidemiological effects of ACEs can follow individuals throughout adulthood, and as the ACE score increases, so do some of the major risk factors for the leading causes of illness and death as well as poor quality of life conditions. 2012). In women, ACEs are also associated with higher risk of migraines and inflammatory biomarkers that predict migraines (Tietjen, Khubchandani, Herial, & Shah, 2012). ACEs can also affect socioeconomic well-being in adulthood. This includes increased risk for unemployment (Liu et al., 2013) and homelessness (Roos et al., 2013). Social service providers have been found to have a higher prevalence of ACEs than those experienced in the general population (Esaki & Larkin, …