The term “Compassion Fatigue” has been used to describe the reluctance of donors to keep giving after the initial wave of appeals connected with large disasters such as the 2004 Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane season, 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake and Myanmar Cyclone, or this month’s Haitian quake.  Charities realize that the window of opportunity to solicit funds is typically only open for three to six weeks and so the pressure to bring even greater exposure and more insistent appeals is even stronger.  However, the underlying cause of “Compassion Fatigue” is not just cynicism or stinginess on the part of donors but something more serious that those who work hands-on in humanitarian causes are more familiar with; Secondary Traumatic Stress.

Traumatic Stress is brought on when we experience events that are highly abnormal.  Our organization, OperationSAFE is dedicated to helping children who have gone through trauma such as disasters, abuse, trafficking, and extreme poverty.  These children have a difficult time functioning in normal life after what they have been through.  Typically, they “handle” this inordinate stress by trying to block it out or withdrawing within themselves.  Hopelessness and despair are common.  However, traumatic stress is not limited to the children alone, but also to those who care for them, whether it is the family or humanitarian workers.  As these caregivers hear their stories and witness their suffering, the very same responses naturally occur – a strong desire to withdraw and the loss of hope that anything will actually make a difference.

When we train volunteers and teach parents how to deal with trauma in children we also give them suggestions on how to keep themselves from developing Secondary Traumatic Stress Syndrome, in some degree the same suggestions are helpful for all of us as we struggle to keep a heart of compassion in the midst of unrelenting bad news from Haiti.

9 Steps to Avoid Compassion Fatigue Without Failing to Care

The Best Way to Care for Others is to Care for Yourself!

In the field we know that lives are depending on us so it is vital that we take care of ourselves so that we can care for them,

• Eat, Sleep and Relax as you normally would,
• Make sure to Exercise Physically to help relieve stress,
• Avoid the use of Chemicals to either enhance performance or induce rest.

Share the Care!

If there is only a one-way flow of stress coming in, it rapidly becomes too much to bear.  One way to reduce the strain is to share it in part with others,

• Talk about the things that are heavy on your heart with friends and supporters,
• Journal, write a blog, send an e-mail to a friend, tweet,
• Pray, meditate, or have a small group discussion with others who care.

Look for Signs of Hope!

Unfortunately, bad news is news.  Good news doesn’t often make the front page unless it is dramatic.  However, there are less dramatic stories of hope that surround us every day.  Be on the look-out for the signs of life returning to normal.

• Make a point of writing or sharing one good thing that happened each day,
• Look for lessons that can be learned even in the midst of the worst situations,
• Celebrate even the smallest victories and personal accomplishments.

I believe that one great contributor to compassion fatigue in the public is that the media overexposes the need and underexposes the great response and difference that is made in people’s lives.  This is the nature of the media of course and it is much easier to report the thousands dead than to find each story of individual lives that recover.  Another contributor to compassion fatigue is the vast scale of donations that are given to charities and the lack of communication of the results.  Donors are given a full disclosure of the pain and suffering but are deprived of the hope and results needed to relieve the trauma they have been exposed to.

My recommendation for those who seek to be compassionate without fail is to become personally involved with a smaller charity – volunteer for hands-on work, give time to be on their board, lend them some of your passion and creativity and share in the the reward of seeing lives changed for good.

(Update! Click Here to read “8 More Ways to Keep Praying for Haiti”)

There is an old adage that goes like this, “Well, I guess all that we can do is pray…”  I approach prayer quite a bit differently and perhaps so should you.  Prayer always comes first – before we can even attempt to do our “little bit” we should make sure that we have called in the “big guns”.  Here is my prayer list for the recent earthquake in Haiti.  If it is helpful in organizing your thoughts feel free to join in and pray with me.

1. Pray for those in need of rescue that it will come swiftly.

There are many who are in need of miracles.  That teams would arrive an hour sooner, that dogs would catch a faint scent amidst the stench of death, that the right piece of concrete would be moved.  For all the training and effort that the courageous rescue teams put in, at this point they need miracles more than anything else.

2. Pray for the rescuers – safety, rest, encouragement, in the midst of horror and unrelenting pain.

The job that the rescue teams face is completely overwhelming and they will fail many more times than they will succeed.  Rescue teams suffer great personal trauma and often become suicidal months after an event.  Pray for these courageous men and women now and after they return.

3. Pray for families that have witnessed the unthinkable, are worried about loved ones, and fearful for their own safety.

For every person who is missing, dead or severely injured in the quake there are ten more who care about them and find themselves unable to do anything about it.  Pray that emotional needs would receive attention amidst all of the physical needs.

4. Pray for children who need comfort and safety, hugs and reassurance – even if they are physically “fine.”

Children are the most vulnerable amidst the aftermath of a disaster.  Every child whose world has been disrupted, seen the death of another person or lost friends or family is in need of emotional care, even if they have not suffered physical harm themselves.

5. Pray for governments and authorities that all red tape would dissappear and corruption would cease.

Haiti has been the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere for a long time and there are many problems that were there before the earthquake.  While the attention of the world is on Haiti, it is time for governments and authorities within Haiti to act for the good of the people and not to promote their political agenda or to line their own pockets.

6. Pray for relief agencies to have wisdom and compassion to make a lasting difference in Haiti.

The earthquake is a great opportunity for aid agencies working in Haiti to make forward progress in a nation where things have only steadily gotten worse.  But long lasting change will come through courageous and wise decisions that deal with the source of problems.

7. Pray for those around you that they would respond not just with what they can do, but with their heart.

The temptation that we all have is to give a small donation and call it the best that we can do.  We all have many reasons why we cannot give more.  Pray that hearts would be moved and that people would be truly generous.  For those of us using social media like Facebook  or Twitter, this means that we should get involved, make connections and let it be personal.

8. Pray for yourself that you would have a heart of compassion – start now and it will grow.

A true heart of compassion is not just ready to give when the need arises like it has now in Haiti.  A true heart of compassion seeks out ways to help even when no one else notices that there is suffering.  People have been suffering in Haiti for a long time, but now the attention of the world is upon it because of the disaster.  A true heart of compassion will allow itself to continue caring long after the world has lost interest.

Once you finish praying, ask yourself two questions.

• How can I become personally involved with helping the people in Haiti?
• How can I financially support someone who is personally involved?

It is important in the early stages of a disaster to fill up the coffers of those organizations that do rescue and relief work.  They will use that money to stay ready for the next disaster that comes.  But in the age of Twitter and Facebook, find someone who is giving their time, energy and life to help those who are suffering and give generously or become that person and give your heart to those who need it most.

The other day my children were riding their bicycles home from school when my daughter fell and skinned her knee.  Her big brother helped her home and then we washed the wound and applied band-aids.  I say band-aids because unlike a cut, a scrape covers a wider area and one band-aid just wasn’t enough.  A few hugs and kisses later and the tears were gone and her life got back to normal (as did her brother’s attitude.)

Humanitarian work is much like this skinned knee but on a much vaster scale.  Typically, after a crisis, various governmental, military and ngo groups rush to the area to provide humanitarian relief.  These groups are charged with saving as many lives as possible with the funds with which they are entrusted, and so they concentrate those resources at the places where the maximum good can be done.  Field hospitals are set up, feeding programs are put in place, vast camps are built to provide shelter, and many people are helped.  All of this is good, but it is not the entire picture.

Each of these is what I call the “Big Band-Aid”, a strategic placement of resources so that the maximum number of people can be helped.  This usually succeeds in meeting the vast majority of needs, however it is in the minority needs that this model breaks down.  In every crisis there are people who for various reasons are not covered by the “Big Band-Aid”.  Some are geographically remote, living in villages high in the mountains and cannot reach the city.  Others are physically present but face different obstacles such as race, religion, disability or poverty that prevent them from receiving the help that they need.

The problem is that for each of these different groups’ needs to be met it would require as many resources or more than it took to meet the needs of the majority.  Like my daughter’s skinned knee it would take three “Big Band-Aids” to entirely cover the area at three times the cost, even though numerically only a fraction of the population are being served.

This is where volunteers matter most.  A relatively small number of volunteers can be deployed to multiple areas at a much lower cost and can even be more effective than a large-scale program that costs millions of dollars.  Because volunteers bring passion and creativity to their work, they are able to both recognize the special needs of minority groups and adapt creative solutions to meet those needs.

I remember working with a small team of volunteers to help an elderly man clean his home after a large earthquake in the countryside in Japan.  We arrived after the inspectors had placed a yellow card on his home (meaning that it would require extensive repairs) and found him in a state of despair.  His wife had been in the hospital and was scheduled to return home, but of course now would not be returning any time soon.  As we cleaned his home, he held his head in his hands and lamented that he would never be able to repair his home before he died.  One of the most discouraging things for him turned out to be that his television wasn’t working.  Without his wife, the television was his only friend and of course without the news he was fearful and alone.  In a few minutes of tinkering, we discovered the problem with the antenna and had the set fixed and what a difference it made!  The elderly man was all smiles and couldn’t thank us enough.

Scenes like this happen all the time when volunteers give of their time and effort to help those who are hurting.  It does not have to cost a lot of money and even the smallest things can make a huge difference in the lives of those who are helped.