The Vicarious Trauma—Organizational Readiness Guide (VT–ORG) was created to help organizations assess their capacity to address employees' work-related exposure to trauma and prioritize organizational needs. It is organized around organizational strategies that reduce, or have the potential to reduce, the impact of vicarious trauma.

There are 4 variations on the VT-ORG, intended to assess four fields: EMS, Victim Services, Law Enforcement, and Fire Services. 

You'll be using the one for victim services, as that most closely mirrors animal sheltering services. However, if your organization is part of or includes law enforcement, you may wish to take that variation as well (both are provided below).

The VTT uses the term "vicarious trauma" broadly to include other related terms such as secondary traumatic stress (STS), compassion fatigue (CF), or critical incident stress (CIS).

Findings can be used to develop strategies to address vicarious trauma through policies, procedures, practices, and programs. This will support your staff so that they can better meet your mission. 

The Office for Victims of Crime, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. 

How an organization recognizes and addresses the needs of staff in these five evidence-informed areas of organizational health:

• Leadership and Mission
• Management and Supervision
• Employee Empowerment and Work Environment
• Training and Professional Development
• Staff Health and Wellness

At a minimum, leadership takes the assessment. Ideally, a number people on staff will take the assessment and discuss the results. Consider people who:

• are knowledgeable about and responsible for the development of organizational policies, procedures, and programs
• have varying levels of experience and can lend different perspectives
• reflect demographic diversity
• have been employed a minimum of 1 year (the VT–ORG assessment tool is based on experiences in the organization in the prior 6 months)

The VT–ORG assessment can be conducted in a variety of ways based on your organization’s size, structure, and needs. Some options include:
 

• Distribute the VT–ORG across the organization to management and staff at all levels.
• Share the VT-ORG with your Program Committee and discuss the results.
• The VT–ORG can be distributed to one division/unit at a time or organization-wide.
• Use the VT–ORG questions and/or results as a conversation starter at a staff meeting or other forum.

The VT–ORG can be distributed in hard copy or by using survey software. The survey can be set up to automatically ensure anonymous responses. If you are distributing the VT–ORG in hard copy, you may wish to consider ways to ensure anonymity, including designating a secure place where staff can return their surveys confidentially.

There are sample emails you can customize and use to announce, share, and close the survey.

The VT-ORG does offer an Excel spreadsheet (which can be found here) that can help you collect and tabulate the data. This is optional, but very helpful.

You can learn more about planning and data collection here.

Once you have compiled the results, you can share this with the staff. There is a sample report that will guide you in sharing the data in a meaningful way.

Visit this page for in-depth information on how to plan, collect, share, and implement changes based on the assessment. 

The Secondary Traumatic Stress Informed Organization Assessment STSI-OA was developed by Dr. Ginny Sprang for the University of Kentucky Center on Trauma and Children. 

This assessment tool will give organizations an opportunity to engage in self assessment to determine the impact of STS in their organization and, combined with an overall trauma informed organizational change framework, support strategic planning in specific areas of need.

The STSI-OA can be used by any organization that serves trauma exposed populations. This includes, but is not limited to, organizations serving child welfare, community mental health, juvenile justice, education, health care, tribal settings, and/or first responders. And animal services!

You can visit this page to request your FREE download of The Secondary Traumatic Stress Informed Organization Assessment STSI-OA. 

Secondary Traumatic Stress refers to the trauma symptoms caused by indirect exposure to traumatic material, transmitted during the process of helping or wanting to help a traumatized person or animal. 

STS is often used interchangeably with Vicarious Trauma. 

The STS Blueprint is an incredible free resource.

After taking the assessment, you can find specific suggestions to help your organization address areas of concern. 

Findings from the assessment can be used to choose which strategies your org might use to address secondary traumatic trauma in the following 6 areas: 

• Resilience-Building, Staff Health, and Wellness
• Creating and Sustaining a Safe and Supportive Culture
• Secondary Traumatic Stress–Informed Policies and Procedures
• Secondary Traumatic Stress–Informed Leadership & Supervision
• STS-Informed Training
• Organizational Evaluation and Monitoring

The assessment looks at how an organization recognizes and addresses the needs of staff in these five evidence-informed areas of organizational health:

It is recommended that everyone in the organization complete the STSI-OA individually and that the results be averaged.  It is important that confidentiality is protected, and that employees can respond to the items anonymously.  

If you have a small organization or team or prefer to complete the STSI-OA as a group, you may do so by coming to consensus on your answer to each question.  You may use this website www.stsinformed.com for automatic scoring.  The disadvantage to this method is that you may not get an accurate picture of how STS-informed your organization is if not everyone in the group agrees or doesn’t feel comfortable providing dissenting opinions.

Visit this page for in-depth information on how to plan, collect, share, and implement changes based on the assessment.