Public Service in the Shadows: Vicarious Trauma and Moral Injury in Government Workers
| Thursday, May 21, 2026 |
| 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM |
Speaker
Dr Rachelle Warner
Adjunct Fellow
University Of Adelaide
Public Service in the Shadows: Vicarious Trauma and Moral Injury in Government Workers
Abstract Document
Public servants are often caricatured as “faceless bureaucrats,” yet many work at the frontline of emotionally heavy and ethically fraught cases. Whether in social services, immigration, child protection, veterans’ affairs, or regulatory roles, government workers routinely engage with trauma narratives, systemic inequities, and morally complex decisions. These encounters can generate vicarious trauma, where exposure to the suffering of others reshapes worldview, identity, and wellbeing, and moral injury, arising when workers feel complicit in or powerless against organisational practices that conflict with their ethical frameworks.
This paper investigates how vicarious trauma and moral injury manifest within public service contexts outside emergency and military professions. Drawing on emerging literature and workplace case studies, it examines how institutional cultures, performance pressures, and political directives can amplify moral stressors. For example, immigration case officers may be required to implement policies that contradict their values of compassion and fairness; social services staff may witness cycles of poverty and harm they cannot disrupt. Unlike clinicians or first responders, these workers rarely receive trauma-informed supervision, peer support networks, or organisational acknowledgment of their psychological load. The result is often silenced suffering, with impacts on staff retention, productivity, and trust in government institutions.
The presentation will:
* Map the intersections between vicarious trauma and moral injury in non-emergency public service roles.
* Explore organisational factors that exacerbate or mitigate harm, including leadership styles, policy settings, and workplace culture.
* Identify promising practices for recognition and recovery, such as reflective supervision models, ethical debriefing, and institutional strategies that validate moral distress.
By bringing these dynamics into the light, the paper challenges the invisibility of moral injury in government work. Recognising and addressing vicarious trauma among public servants is not just a matter of occupational health, it is fundamental to sustaining ethical governance and public trust.
This paper investigates how vicarious trauma and moral injury manifest within public service contexts outside emergency and military professions. Drawing on emerging literature and workplace case studies, it examines how institutional cultures, performance pressures, and political directives can amplify moral stressors. For example, immigration case officers may be required to implement policies that contradict their values of compassion and fairness; social services staff may witness cycles of poverty and harm they cannot disrupt. Unlike clinicians or first responders, these workers rarely receive trauma-informed supervision, peer support networks, or organisational acknowledgment of their psychological load. The result is often silenced suffering, with impacts on staff retention, productivity, and trust in government institutions.
The presentation will:
* Map the intersections between vicarious trauma and moral injury in non-emergency public service roles.
* Explore organisational factors that exacerbate or mitigate harm, including leadership styles, policy settings, and workplace culture.
* Identify promising practices for recognition and recovery, such as reflective supervision models, ethical debriefing, and institutional strategies that validate moral distress.
By bringing these dynamics into the light, the paper challenges the invisibility of moral injury in government work. Recognising and addressing vicarious trauma among public servants is not just a matter of occupational health, it is fundamental to sustaining ethical governance and public trust.
Biography
Dr Rachelle Warner is a self confessed nerd who asks tricky questions and isn’t afraid to wade into the messy intersections of science, policy, and lived experience. An Adjunct Fellow at the University of Adelaide Medical School and Robinson Research Institute, she has spent her career exploring everything from jet fuel exposure in Defence personnel to the politics of reproductive rights and disability.
Her PhD was memorably titled What’s the Deal, Baby? - proof that you can slip a dad joke into a doctoral thesis and still graduate. She’s published papers, presented at conferences, and heroically tried to convince colleagues that toxicology is not toxic and reproductive epidemiology is something you might actually want to Google.
These days, Rachelle is diving into endometriosis, reproductive rights, and vicarious trauma in public service, because clearly she’s never met a difficult, under-researched health issue she didn’t want to befriend. She’s especially interested in how identity, trauma, and systemic nonsense collide to make people’s lives harder than they should be.
Outside of work, you’ll find her over-caffeinated, over-thinking, and over-explaining why “environmental exposures” is just a fancy way of saying: the world is out to mess with your uterus.
