Caring for the Caregivers: Identifying and Addressing Compassion Fatigue in Student Affairs

At the heart of student affairs practice is the time and care professionals invest in building trust and deeply understanding students’ lived experiences and challenges. That personal investment in helping students overcome challenges, however, can simultaneously be a source of fulfillment and exhaustion. And in today’s climate of uncertainty and repeated exposure to students in crises or who are experiencing trauma, the risk of compassion fatigue among student affairs professionals is especially heightened. Insights from research around compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress can help leadership proactively identify exacerbating factors and adopt preventative conditions to help mitigate this.

Often framed as “the cost of caring,” compassion fatigue refers to the secondary traumatic stress that caregivers or those in helping professionals may experience from demonstrating empathy for others in stressful situations. Compassion fatigue on an individual level can result in anxiety, sleep disruptions, intrusive thoughts, difficulty concentrating, increased reactivity, and self-isolation. Moreover, a culture of sacrificing one’s own well-being in service of students seems to disproportionately affect those with a marginalized social identity – particularly those who are women, racially minoritized, and LGBTQIA+ – and those early in their career. Work-environment factors such as caseload volume, frequency of interaction with trauma victims, and perceived lack of social support are also associated with increased feelings of secondary traumatic stress.

Individual self-care practices – such as mindfulness exercises, meditation, physical exercise, and participation in personal and professional support networks – can serve as short-term solutions. However, placing the responsibility on the individual alone is unsustainable. Institutions must take the lead in proactively creating supportive work environments and fostering a systemic culture of care for staff. CUPA-HR’s 2025 Higher Education Employee Retention Survey reinforces the need for institutions to focus on staff well-being, with the study finding that an employee’s sense of belonging and value were more important predictors of retention than pay. 

Lynch (2023) uses findings from the Secondary Trauma in Student Affairs Professionals Scale to offer organizational-level strategies for student affairs consideration. A review of insights from his study reveals five recommendations for preventing compassion fatigue among student affairs professionals that regularly engage with students experiencing trauma:

1. Strengthen mentorship and training practices. Low self-efficacy with regard to one’s ability to engage in trauma-support work can be a strong predictor of a secondary trauma response, which highlights the importance of ensuring new professionals feel equipped for how to navigate situations when students are in a crisis. Institutions can support programming that involves pairing new professionals with more experienced colleagues for shadowing or to role play scenarios where they would be supporting students through difficult situations. Doing so can help with the real-world application of material covered in training and improve a new professional’s sense of confidence about their ability to navigate and overcome high-stress situations.  

2. Embed time and structure for reflection and debriefing. A regular practice of reflection as a team  – being mindful of student privacy and protection policies in place – can help professionals feel validated in their experiences, decrease their sense of isolation, and identify larger patterns and trends to inform future actions. Collectively sharing guidance and resources together can help normalize asking for support and pausing to process and consider the “why” behind the work. Use of a self-assessment tool regarding experiences of compassion fatigue, such as the Secondary Trauma in Student Affairs Professionals Scale, as a department can also help professionals gain insight into how their work is impacting their well-being.

3. Explore policies to expand access to mental health counseling for staff. Employee Assistant Programs (EAPs) are often an undercommunicated staff benefit already offered by many colleges and universities. Institutions should consider opportunities to build awareness about existing resources, what’s included within them, and how employees can utilize them. In addition to building awareness about resources already in place and how employees can utilize them, institutions should consider opportunities to address gaps between staff mental health needs and existing offerings. Lynch (2023), for example, recommends a review of compensation policies for covering a minimum number of visits for an outside counseling service. Leaders in student affairs can collaborate with HR to explore expansion of insurance options to make mental health counseling more affordable or accessible to staff. Part of increasing access may also include creating campus counseling positions that are solely focused on the needs of staff or that provide consultations and referrals to off-campus professionals.  

4. Promote transparency in recruitment materials. Recruitment practices in student affairs should be more explicit in job postings to include greater detail about the degree of emotional labor that is expected of professionals. Being transparent and upfront about the extent to which the position will involve regularly supporting students in crises or who are experiencing trauma – as well as the available institutional resources and policies to help support staff – can help potential candidates make informed decisions about whether they are the right fit for the position. 

5. Incorporate topics such as self-care and strategies for recognizing and managing compassion fatigue into graduate school programs. These programs could draw from social work courses and learning outcomes around case management and boundary setting to help prepare future professionals on how to navigate the realities of the field.

Shifting workplace norms and systems to prevent and manage compassion fatigue requires intentionality, consistency, and connection-building. NASPA’s Wellness and Health Promotion Knowledge Community and offerings at NASPA’s Annual Conference can serve as valuable peer learning spaces, allowing professionals to bring back practical strategies to discuss and adapt to their own institutional contexts. NASPA’s Commission on the Intersection of Student Well-being and Success will also continue to focus on the importance of well-being and thriving in higher education and ways to move the efforts forward. Prioritization of a culture of care at all levels of an institution is a worthwhile investment that is essential to staff and student retention.

Conference attendees can learn more about the priorities and progress of the Commission at the Annual Conference in a featured session – The NASPA Commission on the Intersection of Well-being and Student Success: Reflecting and Refining Our Path Forward – on Monday, March 9 at 8:30am CT.