Abstract
African Americans are known to have a higher risk of health problems among ethnic groups (Williams, 2002). They are overrepresented among those with mental health care challenges when incomes are not controlled (Townes, Chavez-Korell, & Cunningham, 2009), and they are less likely to seek mental health services (Obasi & Leong, 2009). Therefore, African Americans as social workers may have an elevated risk for developing burnout and vicarious trauma. An exploratory, cross-sectional study was conducted among 31 African American social work practitioners and students to assess burnout and vicarious trauma, and to determine whether resilience and coping may serve as protective factors. Respondents were recruited through faculty social workers and MSW students at CSU Sacramento‘s Social Work program. A self-administered questionnaire involved thirty likert scale questions from both the Stamm‘s (2009) ProQOL Version 5 Survey to detect burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion satisfaction and the Africultural Coping Systems Inventory (ACSI) to measure the culture-specific coping strategies used by African Americans in stressful, day-to-day situations. A focus group was also conducted. Salient findings included low potential for burnout and vicarious trauma, high compassion satisfaction, resilience, high reliance on spiritual and collective methods v of coping, and rare mention of personal intentions to pursue mental health services for self-care.