Disaster Relief Volunteers and their Continued Service: Why Volunteer in the Face of Trauma?

Abstract

Volunteering is an often overlooked yet critically essential force of labor that aids in maintaining normalcy and order in many societies across the world. These labors are often deemed dangerous, taxing, and a catalyst for future traumatic disorders. Despite this, however, volunteers are always readily available and more often than not continue to volunteer again and again. The focus of this study is to understand the minds of these volunteers that knowingly work in the face of trauma and continue to do so. In hoping to understand, I focused my attention on understanding the function and predictability of compassion fatigue, a commonly associated derivative of trauma that many front-line workers and volunteers face due to experiencing overwhelming amounts of caring for others. With this knowledge, I hoped that filling the rest of the lines in would help understand the motivations of chronic volunteers. Results show that specific motivations and a perspective change on the aftermath of trauma may yield relevant results in understanding volunteers at a much stronger level.