Exploring Vicarious Trauma as a Community

Karen Hangartner, LMSW, is Project Director for the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center, a project of the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC) and a TTA Coordinator with the Vicarious Trauma Response Initiative (VTRI). The NCAC was the first Child Advocacy Center in the world, and continues to provide prevention and intervention services for child abuse victims in Huntsville/Madison County, AL; and, also houses the NCAC Training Center, the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center, the NCAC Virtual Training Center, and the Child Abuse Library Online (CALiO). Ms. Hangartner holds a BS degree in Psychology from Athens State University and Masters in Social Work from The University of Alabama. She has been with the National Children’s Advocacy Center since 2003, spending four years in the Prevention department before beginning work with the Southern Regional Children’s Advocacy Center. As Project Director for SRCAC, Karen is responsible for developing and delivering training for Children’s Advocacy Centers, Multidisciplinary teams, and State Chapter organizations across 16 states and the District of Columbia. She has conducted more than 200 trainings for MDTs, CACs and Chapters in the Southern region. She also presents at state, national and international conferences on a variety of topics including, Secondary Traumatic Stress, Trauma Informed Multidisciplinary Teams, Team Functioning, and Leading in a Multidisciplinary Environment. She also works with regional and national partners on collaborative projects. Prior to joining the NCAC staff, Karen served as Children’s Minister at First Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama.

Lisa A. Tieszen, M.A., LICSW, is a Senior Partner with Resilience Works (www.resilienceworks.org) and a TTA Coordinator with the Vicarious Trauma Response Initiative (VTRI). She widely consults to projects including the Law Enforcement and the Communities They Serve: Supporting Collective Healing in the Wake of Trauma project (https://www.theiacp.org/projects/law-enforcement-and-the-communities-they-serve-supporting-collective-healing-in-the-wake); Vicarious Trauma Toolkit (https://vtt.ovc.ojp.gov/) and Vicarious Trauma Response Project (https://www.theiacp.org/projects/vicarious-trauma-response-initiative), all projects funded by the federal Office for Victims of Crime. Lisa spent over 30 years in healthcare organizations, developing and directing projects responding to patients and staff affected by trauma. It was while on a child abuse team at Boston Children’s Hospital that she, along with colleagues, began to identify the co-occurrence of child abuse and domestic violence. There, in 1984, she helped to launch the first domestic violence advocacy project in a pediatric health care setting. Lisa actively engages with organizations and teams, through training and consultation, to strengthen their resilience and enhance their overall health, with an emphasis on trauma-informed principles. She consults widely to domestic and sexual violence programs as well as legal services groups and works clinically with survivors of childhood and adult trauma in her private psychotherapy practice in Brookline, MA.