An Investigation of Factors Contributing to Secondary Traumatic Stress in School Counselors: A Pilot Study

School counselors often experience high levels of stress that may result from a variety of factors including multiple job responsibilities, role ambiguity, high caseloads, limited clinical supervision, and exposure to students who have experienced trauma (DeMato & Curcio, 2004; Lambie, 2007; McCarthy et al., 2010; Rumsey, 2017; Mullen & Gutierrez, 2016). This article reports findings from a pilot study that further explored the relationship between counselor activities and demographic variables on school counselors' (N=55) levels of secondary traumatic stress after controlling for burnout and years of experience. Findings indicate that overall secondary traumatic stress was low to moderate with Coordination and Other activities significantly influencing the outcome. This brings attention to the contributing factors of secondary traumatic stress in school counselors that can inform educational training, wellness interventions, and environmental supports for school counselors. This pilot study resulted in encouraging findings and future implications are discussed.