Keywords

Introduction

The first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic shone a spotlight on care work of all kinds. While there has been increasing recognition of the emotional toll of care work during the pandemic, to date support has been limited to specific types of care workers. The mental health and wellbeing of health care workers have been a priority consideration in government responses internationally to COVID-19 (Blake et al., 2021; Department of Health, 2020; Dow, 2020; Kinman et al., 2020; Sainato, 2020; Yaker, 2020). This focus on health care worker wellbeing was informed by previous research that demonstrated the negative psychological effects of health crises on health care workers including anxiety, stress, depression, burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder (Cabarkapa et al., 2020; Preti et al., 2020; Sanghera et al., 2020; Stuijfzand et al., 2020). Notably, there has not been the same level of government mobilisation to safeguard the mental health and wellbeing of DFV workers on the frontline of the so-called ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence against women. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed extraordinary demands on DFV service systems worldwide. Like their health and aged care colleagues, DFV workers have experienced unprecedented demand since the onset of the pandemic (Boserup et al., 2020; Campbell, 2020; Carrington et al., 2021; Pfitzner et al., 2020a, 2020b, 2022a, 2022b). With people sheltering in homes during government-directed lockdowns, DFV has intensified in both prevalence and severity (Bagheri Lankarani et al., 2022; Boxall et al., 2020; Pfitzner et al., 2020a, 2022b; Piquero et al., 2021).

The onset of the pandemic triggered the closure of workplaces, schools and childcare facilities and a global transition to working from home. For most DFV workers, this meant that home became the primary setting for performing their professional paid care work, and often unpaid childcare and schooling. This chapter explores how the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to working from home impacted the mental health and emotional wellbeing of DFV specialist workers.

Working with Domestic and Family Violence Clients

Working with traumatised clients, such as individuals and families who have experienced or are experiencing DFV, often unavoidably affects professional and personal functioning (Cohen & Collens, 2013; McCann & Pearlman, 1990). Secondary traumatic stress (STS), vicarious trauma (VT), compassion fatigue, burnout and occupational stress have been identified as common responses to the challenging nature of trauma work (Brend et al., 2020; Choi, 2011; Cohen & Collens, 2013; Kulkarni et al., 2013; McCann & Pearlman, 1990; Morran, 2008; Tarshis & Baird, 2019). Figley (1995, p. 7) defines STS as, ‘the natural consequent behaviours and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other—the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person’. In contrast, VT refers to the process in which professionals working with trauma survivors can become negatively affected by their clients’ traumatic experiences (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). Hearing clients’ stories of trauma can alter professionals’ sense of self and how they see the world. They can become more fearful or cynical, unable to trust and develop connections with others, experience depression and develop feelings of powerlessness (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). While there is some debate about how these constructs are conceptualised (see Brend et al., 2020), as suggested in what follows, there is an evidence-based consensus that working with people impacted by trauma has negative effects on worker wellbeing.

These negative effects on wellbeing extend beyond individual practitioners and have wider implications for the DFV workforce in terms of high staff turnover and low employee retention. For example, a 2017 DFV workforce census in Victoria, Australia, revealed that almost one-third of specialist DFV practitioners were considering leaving their job due to burnout (Family Safety Victoria, 2017). COVID-19 has presented unique challenges for DFV sectors internationally. Public health orders have required DFV services to adapt and innovate in response to constantly changing work conditions while services simultaneously experienced increased demand. The following discussion explores the mental health and wellbeing implications of working during the COVID-19 pandemic for DFV workforces through a case study examination of the experiences of practitioners in Victoria.

Trauma Care During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Australian Case Study

As in many countries around the world, Australian states and territories entered government-directed lockdowns in March 2020, which involved orders to work from home and significant restrictions on movement intended to curb the spread of COVID-19.Footnote 1 In the Australian state of Victoria, a state of emergency was declared on 16 March 2020. By the end of March, the state entered its first lockdown (also referred to as Stage 3 restrictions), where people could only go outside their home for four permitted reasons: shopping for food and necessary goods, providing care, exercising and work or education that individuals were unable to do either from home.

An online survey of 166 Victorian DFV practitioners conducted by Pfitzner et al. (2020a, 2022b) in 2020 investigated the impact of COVID-19 and associated restrictions on women’s experiences of DFV in Victoria.Footnote 2 The survey revealed that practitioners perceived that the prevalence, severity and nature of DFV experienced by their clients had intensified during the first 2020 lockdown. The DFV practitioners reported that their clients’ experiences of DFV had increased in frequency by 59% and increased in severity by 50% during the initial lockdown (Pfitzner et al., 2020a, 2022b). The survey findings aligned with data later released by Victoria Police which showed that the number of police-recorded DFV incidents was higher every month in 2020 compared to 2019 (Rmandic et al., 2020).

In addition to collecting data on DFV trends observed among specialist DFV practitioners, the survey captured the impact of COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns on DFV services. In Victoria, the DFV workforce were not classified as essential workers exempt from the work-from-home orders and DFV workers had to rapidly transition to supporting people affected by violence remotely from their homes. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Victorian DFV services, like their interstate and international counterparts, were based on in-person face-to-face service delivery models (Joshi et al., 2021; Lee et al., 2017; Martin et al., 2020). When asked about the impact of the pandemic on their service delivery, a few practitioners flagged concerns about increased stress and the greater potential for vicarious trauma during the lockdowns:

Increased stress on clinicians due to the pressure to not place the client at greater risk of harm when delivering an adapted service model whilst the client is in isolation with the perpetrator. (DFV practitioner, survey one respondent)

Difficulties supporting staff and assisting with vicarious trauma and holding risk in relation to women and children. (DFV practitioner, survey one respondent)

The first lockdown in Victoria lasted around six weeks and restrictions began to ease from mid-May through to 1 June 2020. In late June 2020, restrictions began to tighten again and the Melbourne metropolitan area and the Mitchell Shire re-entered Stage 3 restrictions on 9 July. Under Stage 3, people were required to stay at home and could only go outside for the four permitted reasons previously listed. On 23 July, two weeks after returning to Stage 3 restrictions, the wearing of face coverings outside the home was made compulsory in these two areas of Victoria. Following the continued increase in daily coronavirus infection numbers, a state of disaster was declared in Victoria on 2 August and some of the world’s most stringent restrictions came into place. The entire Melbourne metropolitan area entered Stage 4, which included the additional imposition of a nightly curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., limiting people’s movements to a five kilometre radius from their homes unless they had an exemption, closing all kindergarten and day care centres except for children of permitted workers, restricting household shopping to one person per household per day, and limiting daily outdoor exercise to one hour per person. These restrictions lasted until 28 October 2020 when government orders shifted from ‘stay-at-home’ to ‘stay safe’, and the four permitted reasons to leave home no longer applied.

During the height of the Stage 4 restrictions in Victoria, Pfitzner et al. (2020b) conducted a second state-wide study that investigated the impact of the prolonged lockdown on DFV worker wellbeing. The study was based on an online survey of 113 Victorian DFV practitionersFootnote 3 and virtual focus groups with 28 practitioners from specialist DFV and men’s services conducted during July–August 2020.Footnote 4 The study findings revealed that working from home and providing DFV support remotely exacerbated the psychological impact of caring for trauma survivors. In particular, the loss of in-person, on-site collegial support and debriefing, and the erosion of personal boundaries due to working from home had significant adverse effects on worker wellbeing. These research findings are explored in the following discussion under three themes: the cost of care work during a crisis, when home becomes the workplace, and the loss of in-person peer support and debriefing.

The Cost of Care Work During a Crisis

A major theme arising from the second Victoria study, which looked at the impact of lockdowns on DFV worker wellbeing, was the challenges of working during a time of crisis. Many of the focus group participants reported that the constant uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic was negatively affecting their work and mental health. As one practitioner noted:

I’ve literally got to get online on our intranet and check the working instructions practically every day or when there’s a situation come up because they change so rapidly. It’s just so hard to keep on top of all the changes. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Similar sentiments were made by one survey participant in response to a question about personal challenges associated with working during the pandemic. In nominating challenges associated with working during the pandemic, the survey respondent said that they were ‘constantly needing to review process and procedure to ensure safety’.

DFV workers not only experienced an unprecedent increased in the volume and intensity of their work but they also had to rapidly adapt their services and programs to provide support remotely and faced ever changing pandemic-mandated protocols. As one practitioner explained:

So as the different lockdowns have happened, different stages, different requirements in terms of whether it’s PPE or contingency plans. Like having to constantly revise things and update things and then communicate what that means now. That’s generated a lot of work and demand too … So even just trying to keep on top of all of that as well has been quite challenging whilst we’re still trying to run the program and support staff and manage any crises or whatever else. It’s just been really complicated and complex. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

The inability of workers to provide in-person support due to COVID-19 restrictions along with the uncertainty of what was occurring in homes affected by DFV during this time, compounded the general stress and anxiety felt by the DFV workforce. As one worker said:

Whereas previously we might have employed a strategy of just dropping by to visit a client, now I think if a client’s not engaging there’s that real concern about what’s happening for them and how long it’s been since a worker has actually sighted them to know how they actually are, and if they’re ok. I think definitely workers are carrying that weight and I think yeah, I’m really conscious of the impact of that on workers as well, having to sit with that uncertainty and try and find ways of sort of doing what we can to manage risk. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

With the DFV service system overwhelmed due to high demand during the second state lockdown, workers felt an increased emotional burden caring for clients:

There’s a lot of hoops to go through to get from A to B all of a sudden because of all the restrictions in place … I actually described it yesterday that it felt like someone had just poured a heap of concrete on my shoulders because my client had put so much trust and – just all onto me, and I literally felt that weight and it was like okay, it’s up to me to do this for her now. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Providing professional care to people impacted by trauma, such as DFV, can be stressful during non-catastrophic conditions. In Victoria, the lockdowns and associated restrictions necessitated a rapid transition to remote service delivery models, which limited DFV service responses and slowed system processes. These restricted working conditions escalated the stress and emotional burden experienced by workers who provide support to individuals affected by DFV. In addition to heightening the psychological consequences of working with clients experiencing trauma, the COVID-19 pandemic also saw the home become the workplace for most DFV professionals.

When Home Becomes the Workplace

Working from home and the associated COVID-19 restrictions undid traditional self-care strategies employed by DFV workers. A key feature of effective self-care strategies for DFV workers is separating work and personal life often through creating a safe space that is physically and psychologically removed from the workplace. The majority of the DFV workers in this second Victorian study reported that their safe space was typically their home. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most DFV services in Victoria were delivered through face-to-face interactions with clients that took place at on-site facilities or during client home visits. These on-site working models meant that DFV practitioners did not conduct work from home.

The second Victorian study showed that the transition to working from home during the pandemic allowed clients’ trauma stories to infiltrate workers’ homes and erode their self-care practices. As practitioners reflected:

Challenging to bring family violence trauma into my home “my safe space”. Challenging to maintain work/home divide. (DFV practitioner, survey two respondent)

It just feels like there’s this hum of family violence in this room and it’s become this – when it’s all over I feel like I need to sage the room and do all this stuff. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

I currently work out of my bedroom. This makes it difficult to uphold work/life boundaries. It’s not ideal talking about highly emotional / traumatic / violent things in my own bedroom. It taints the feeling of my bedroom being a safe space and it’s more difficult to switch off after work. (DFV practitioner, survey two respondent)

Workers also said they had difficulty ‘switching off’ when working from home. As part of their mental health and wellbeing strategies prior to the pandemic, some workers engaged in end-of-workday rituals to create a separation from work and tune out from their day. This often happened on their commute home or in carparks at workplaces. However, practitioners said that working from home did not provide the same opportunities to symbolically and mentally mark the end of their working day, and it was difficult to separate their work and personal lives:

There’s just not that transition time between home and work … I’ve heard colleagues talk about they can’t walk into the car together. [It] felt like a really important part of the day … When you just have a two-second walk from your spare bedroom to the kitchen, and the kids are there ready to be parented, it’s very different. There’s not a lot of transition space between the two. (Specialist DFV worker, focus group participant)

I had an hour and a half drive generally to and an hour and a half from work, so that was head time. So the biggest impact I had was I think not having any unwind time. Straight away you finish work and you’re at home, that can be really difficult to manage. (Men’s services worker, focus group participant)

The practitioners’ reflections indicate that it has been challenging to replicate end-of-workday rituals when working remotely from home and that many traditional self-care strategies, particularly maintaining personal and professional boundaries, have not been possible during the pandemic. In the context of DFV, end-of-workday rituals assist workers in creating physical and psychological space from their trauma work, helping them leave their work at work. These findings suggest that working from home inhibits workers’ efforts to manage the psychological effects of their trauma work.

The Loss of In-Person Peer Support and Debriefing

Peer support and debriefing with colleagues is a common self-care strategy employed by professionals working with people impacted by trauma to promote their mental health and wellbeing (Killian, 2008; Lee & Millier, 2013). This current study showed that working remotely from home during lockdowns physically isolated practitioners from their colleagues and led to an immediate loss of in-person peer support and debriefing with colleagues. As these practitioners commented:

So if it’s a difficult situation you can turn around and debrief with someone or go for a walk with a colleague, step out for a coffee, and suddenly without all of that it felt strange. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

It’s challenging to not have a team around you and colleagues to debrief with immediately after a difficult phone call. (DFV practitioner, survey two respondent)

Many practitioners reported feeling isolated when working from home:

Feeling quite isolated and alone in the work. It’s challenging staying in contact with other practitioners and organisations. (DFV practitioner, survey respondent)

Less contact between colleagues … feel socially disconnected from your team. Don’t have the ability to debrief so end up sharing with my partner which isn’t ideal. (DFV practitioner, survey two respondent)

Practitioners reported that this isolation was felt acutely by workers living alone during the work-from-home orders:

In relation to vicarious trauma, it adds another layer being in the home … So yeah, that’s certainly adding on another layer in terms of there’s no escape in a way, that we are in a home and especially for those who live on their own and can’t have contact back with family and friends. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

For staff that are on their own, having to contend with that isolation … it’s really, I can really see the difference for those staff members that are on their own, and just sort of speaking with them about making sure that they’re connected and with other supports as well. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Some agencies offered virtual debriefing sessions and remote supervision to staff. However, many practitioners and managers said that these remote wellbeing supports felt formalised and uncomfortable:

I guess not being able to have those quick debrief conversations with staff anymore. Like when you’re in the office and you had a difficult phone call or they had a difficult phone call they could simply turn around or come and grab you and say “can we have a chat?” Now it’s more of a formal process where they have to pick up the phone and call and if they get you, they get you. If not, it becomes more challenging. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

The group video debriefs, I’m not a huge fan to be honest. I just prefer the casual, the kind of ad hoc one-on-one spontaneous debriefs and that doesn’t happen and I’m not just going to call someone. It just feels a bit contrived or weird or maybe they’re busy. It’s just not the same as seeing that someone’s sitting at their desk and has a free moment for a chat. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Many DFV workers lamented the loss of incidental support. Further adding to the discomfort associated with pre-scheduled remote debriefings, practitioners who participated in the focus groups said that working remotely burdened individual staff with the responsibility to proactively seek support. As one practitioner commented:

I do think it’s hard as well because it’s almost like we have to be the ones that are proactively reaching out if we’re struggling, and if you’re not really in the right headspace in order to pick up the phone and call someone, it can be really, really hard. Yeah, it’s not like when you are in the office and are able just to swing around your chair and talk to someone, you know? It’s actually like you can feel quite isolated … I wish there was less of this expectation … that it’s on the worker to make contact if you’re struggling. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

DFV workers explained that during this time of increased demand and high workloads, they were reluctant to formally seek out colleagues for support who may themselves be struggling. As one practitioner explained:

That burden, it feels like you’re holding that risk all the time … We have a lot of informal catchups to debrief and talk, and we still do regular supervision and all of those things but it’s very hard to actually pick up the phone and say, “I just had a really rough conversation” because you don’t know what they’re doing. You don’t know if they’re busy, they could be having a rough day, because we don’t have that luxury of being able to look over the pod and say they’re free … So, I know the support’s there but I don’t necessarily say, “Hey, I’m not doing great, can I have a debrief?” (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Likewise, one manager explained that:

I think definitely that is something that’s been missing in the moment. Like when you’ve had a difficult call at home and I think I’ve certainly just tried to really encourage people to, that it is OK to just call on a colleague or to call me, just to kind of debrief in the moment about that challenging call but I think because there’s that additional step of having to pick up the phone rather than when we were working in the office, a colleague would actually just notice if someone had had a difficult call and would reach out to them. But I think now that the onus is on that person that’s had that call. I think often people are not taking that step of making the call. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

At the same time that working from home reduced opportunities for professional peer support and debriefing, it brought another layer of people directly into contact with trauma. Practitioners reported that conducting trauma work from home had a negative impact on the wellbeing of individuals sharing homes with them during the restrictions. Many practitioners were concerned about the exposure of their children to traumatic stories during periods of work-from-home orders. As two practitioners commented:

I try to make sure that they [my children] don’t hear any of it but they see me working and they can obviously see my presentation … it’s … something that I’ve always tried to keep away from my children and they are now seeing the stress and … they probably hear certain things as they walk past … and I feel like they’ve been a little exposed to it … So when they see me stressed, they know that someone might be in danger, so they just get stressed as well. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

It came up because my daughter … said, “Oh mum, can I ask you something?” … I thought she was in her bedroom … it was really horrible … [I] … had to sit there and debrief with her. And she only heard a snippet of a conversation. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

Another practitioner talked about trying to plan her client consultations around her child’s movements so as to minimise their exposure to trauma stories. They said:

Some of the conversations that we have … it’s horrific stuff. And I know my daughter is 19 but she doesn’t need to hear what some of the stuff that comes through … I try and plan my day around it. So that I’m not having those particular specific conversations … on those days at home. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

As discussed earlier in this chapter, separating work and personal life was seen to be a critical self-care strategy and this was undone by bringing trauma work into homes. Where DFV workers shared homes with others in the field, the ability to tune out and create distance from their work was particularly challenging. As one practitioner explained:

I live in a two-bedroom apartment with two other people as well who also work in family violence and I think there has been an assumption about if you’re a professional working from home that you do have a space where you can separate and keep the door closed and everything like that but that’s not the reality … And the vicarious trauma can be really impactful. I noticed within my housemates that their mental health significantly declined just from having a house that was just full of family violence talk. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

The empirical findings presented in this chapter clearly demonstrate the adverse outcomes on DFV professionals’ mental health and wellbeing when trauma work is brought into their private spheres. The remote work settings during the COVID-19 pandemic fostered a sense of social isolation and loneliness among workers and reduced the availability and accessibility of peer support and debriefing. The loss of immediate, in-person peer support and debriefing with colleagues intensified the already significant psychological consequences for DFV professionals of exposure to their clients’ traumatic experiences. In addition, this study shows that the negative psychological effects of providing trauma care from homes extended beyond workers directly providing care to other individuals sharing homes with them during periods of restrictions.

A Gendered Burden of Care: DFV Workers and Unpaid Care Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The gender asymmetries in unpaid care work are well documented, and so too is the mental health burden of such unpaid work (Ervin et al., 2022; Seedat & Rondon, 2021). Women have been awarded the unenviable label of the ‘shock absorbers’ of the COVID-19 pandemic and described as performing a ‘double double shift’ during lockdowns (John et al., 2020; Sandberg & Thomas, 2020). Prior to the pandemic, women and girls provided 75% of unpaid care and domestic work performed in homes each day worldwide (Moreira da Silva, 2019). The International Labour Organisation (2018) calculates that on average women spend 3.2 times more time on unpaid care work than men performing four hours and 25 minutes of unpaid care work each day compared to only one hour and 23 minutes for men. These gendered differences in the proportion of paid work, unpaid care and domestic work persisted following the large-scale shift to working from home during periods of pandemic-mandated restrictions in Australia, the UK, the US and other countries (Collins et al., 2020; Craig & Churchill, 2020; Power, 2020). In fact, the closure of schools and childcare facilities and the unavailability of in-home help during times of pandemic restrictions led to an increase in the time spent by women performing unpaid care work (Andrew et al., 2020; Pozzan & Cattaneo, 2020; Seedat & Rondon, 2021).

Unsurprisingly, the increased time spent by women performing unpaid care and domestic work during the pandemic contributed to poorer mental health outcomes for women. An Australian study by Hammarberg et al. (2020) investigated the prevalence of symptoms of depression and anxiety during the first month of pandemic restrictions in 2020. The study found that women were spending more time providing unpaid care work during these periods and had higher rates of clinically significant symptoms of depression and anxiety than men (Hammarberg et al., 2020). These observations suggest that the disproportionate amount of unpaid care work performed by women not only increases the mental health burden of such care but also places them at higher risk of poor mental health.

The DFV workforce in Victoria is highly gendered with 80.5% of the workforce made up of women (Family Safety Victoria, 2017). Aligning with recent research about women bearing the emotional load of the pandemic, the findings from the second Victorian study indicate that the female-dominated Victorian DFV workforce is no exception to the gendered mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The practitioners in the second Victorian study reported that the general stresses of living and working through a pandemic, particularly increased childcare and home-schooling responsibilities, added another layer to the mental and emotional challenges of their trauma work. As one practitioner explained:

It’s not just the work that we do and the family violence that we hear constantly, it’s the fact that we also have our own families, and our own spouses may have lost their jobs, our kids may have mental health issues as well. So, on top of the work that we do we may have also some personal issues. (Specialist DFV practitioner, focus group participant)

This general rise in mental health issues for women performing unpaid care work during periods of pandemic restrictions is likely to be more pronounced for DFV professionals given their key role in responding to the unfolding shadow pandemic of violence against women. Paid care professions, such as those who work in health and aged care services, are overwhelmingly female dominated and DFV workforces are no exception (Family Safety Victoria, 2017; Wood et al., 2017).

Concluding Thoughts

Given their key role in responding to the unfolding shadow pandemic, DFV professionals reported in the data presented in this chapter seemed to be more vulnerable to distress and mental health problems during the COVID-19 crisis. The psychological consequences of exposure to traumatic experiences through their work with clients affected by DFV were compounded by the highly pressurised conditions of the pandemic, particularly the transition to working remotely from home. During periods of lockdowns, many DFV workers brought their trauma work home and offered care and support for people impacted by DFV in the same space they share with family members and others, oftentimes while caring for children during early childhood education and school closures.

The Victorian case study discussed in this chapter demonstrates that DFV professionals pay a significant cost for providing care to trauma survivors remotely from their homes during crises. Similar findings about the negative impact that the pandemic and working from home has had on DFV workforces has been made by researchers in the UK and US (Women’s Aid, 2020; Wood et al., 2022). Like their Australian colleagues, US practitioners working at DFV and sexual assault services during the pandemic said that the transition to working remotely from home disrupted their self-care strategies, particularly debriefing with colleagues after difficult cases (Wood et al., 2022). Similarly, staff working in DFV services in the UK during the initial lockdowns from April to June 2020 reported that the shift to working from home isolated them from their work support teams and presented particular challenges for the female-dominated sector whose workers were attempting to balance unpaid and paid care work (Women’s Aid, 2020). Both of these studies also echoed the findings of the Australian case study discussed in this chapter about the difficulties of findings a private space to have sensitive and challenging conversations in their homes about clients’ traumatic experiences (Women’s Aid, 2020; Wood et al., 2022). Taken together this evidence shows that working remotely from homes during periods of lockdowns gave rise to a range of conditions that adversely impacted on DFV workers’ social, emotional and psychological wellbeing.

Significantly, there is increasing recognition that the psychological effects of trauma, such as DFV, extend beyond those directly affected and can impact professionals working with trauma survivors (Brend et al., 2020; Cohen & Collens, 2013; Kulkarni et al., 2013). However, to date organisational support for professionals who provide care for people impacted by trauma is largely based around on-site models of working, and sector discussions around DFV worker wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic tend to focus on the self-care strategies and practices that individual workers can employ to safeguard their mental health and wellbeing. An exception is the co-designed Best Practice Guidelines: Supporting the Wellbeing of Family Violence Workers During Times of Emergency and Crisis (for further information, see Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Domestic Violence Victoria and Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria, 2021). This chimes with Cohen-Serrins’s (2021) call for greater attention to the role that organisations can play in managing and mitigating the potential harmful effects of trauma work. To ensure the sustainability of DFV workforces, organisational mental health and wellbeing strategies need to be multi-pronged. At the individual level, policies and practices need to support both on-site and remote workers to proactively manage their mental health and wellbeing through crises. At the institutional level, organisations need to develop emergency plans that prioritise the mental health and wellbeing of workers and actively monitor staff wellbeing. Importantly, organisational policies must be future-oriented and seek to build workforce resilience for future crises.