| Description |
This qualitative research study is centered on a phenomenological examination of secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and potential self-care deficits in elementary educators that may lead to burnout and teacher turnover. The primary lens through which I viewed my research was Dorothea Orem's (2001) Self-Care Deficit Theory of Nursing (SCDTN). The findings and assertions resulted from a thick, rich analysis of interviews of three participants' experiences in elementary education. The participants range in career status from early career/provisional to mid-career/professional educators teaching grades ranging from K-5 in an urban school along the Wasatch Front in Salt Lake County, Utah. The participants were educators during the 2022-2023 school year who all made a building/career transition. They did not return to their school building for the ensuing academic year but remained in education. This phenomenology captured the essence of my participant's lived experiences and the emergence of the phenomena of exhaustion, traumatic responses, and self-care deficit, which lead to an energy deficit cycle. This deficit is leading to burnout. Three assertions emerged from the research: first, awareness is a critical component for educators in understanding trauma and traumatic responses; second, self-care strategies must be intentionally planned for both during the day and off-contract hours to allow the educators to decompress from Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and Compassion Fatigue (CF) and lastly, educators are exhausted and in danger of burnout if not already self-diagnosed as experiencing burnout. These assertions illustrate an energy cycle deficit in these elementary educators, and intervention is needed to help them return to a state of wellness. |
