Redefining boundaries,guilt,and success: Examining the impact of COVID-19 on domestic abuse service providers

Managing personal and professional boundaries

Participants unanimously acknowledged that transitioning to remote work was a daunting and substantial adjustment. Ensuring privacy was a key concern, particularly since the majority of participants shared their living space with others, such as family members, friends, or housemates. While some were able to carve out dedicated workspaces, others had to navigate shared environments, juggling their professional responsibilities alongside those of others in the household:

I had a little counselling sign that I stuck up on the bedroom door going ‘In counselling’ so that people would know just not to interrupt during that time. (DASP3)

In addition to prioritising victim/client confidentiality, participants emphasised the importance of establishing physical boundaries to prevent children from overhearing sensitive and distressing conversations.

Despite efforts to relocate to alternative spaces or create clear physical boundaries, many struggled with the lack of separation between their work and leisure environments. Visual indicators of their work materials often served as constant reminders of emotionally charged tasks infiltrating their personal and home lives. This challenge was particularly pronounced for those working from bedrooms, typically spaces associated with sex or sleep; intimacy or vulnerability. Participants working directly with victims/clients, conducting risk assessments, safety planning, or counselling, reported heightened feelings of ‘inescapability’ and ‘overlap’ compared to those working from other parts of their homes:

Because I’ve got double screens and things, I had to leave it all set up, so you sort of wake up to your, you know, it was just unhealthy. You wake up to your computer right there by the end of your bed. Yeah, it just wasn’t right. (DASP14)

You know, working with trauma from your bedroom in a house share, like, it’s probably really not ideal, and unhealthy, but it was fine, but I was just conscious of the impact that could have, being in that space. (DASP12)

Similar findings around space and safety were outlined by Sleath et al. (2024) with respect to sexual violence service providers. The intimacy of using bedrooms as workspaces also posed practical concerns for DASP participants who utilised device cameras to enhance communication with victims/clients during conversations. DASPs were acutely aware of the heightened risk, as perpetrators were more likely to be present at home due to lockdown restrictions. This awareness led to concerns among participants about the potential of perpetrators to observe them during video calls, thereby compromising the safety and confidentiality of interactions:

I was very resistant to going to video calls. . . . I was really worried about the safety stuff anyway around phone calls and I was like, that will be even harder if there is a perpetrator in the room, it’s even more obvious what’s going on if they can see my face on the screen and they can see something’s going on. . . . I created a space that feels like a workspace and that also where you can’t see that it’s my bedroom because I don’t want my clients seeing my room. (DASP18)

Working from home also disrupted the natural boundaries for work practices and hours that are typically provided by office-based environments, where structures and rules are already established and require less conscious effort to maintain. Home-based work demanded greater discipline, contributing to some participants feeling obligated to work even outside of designated hours. DASPs accustomed to a regular daily routine or fixed hours experienced this disruption more keenly, while others appreciated the flexibility it afforded:

Initially, it was a little bit difficult to stop working. So, you know, being sat at your desk all the time, you just carry on, and you don’t have the little breaks for chat like you do when you’re in an office with other people. So, yeah it was much more difficult to boundary that I suppose, and not, just, not give yourself a break and carry on working, really. (DASP13)

I literally worked when I could, rather than having such a rigid routine. (DASP4)

DASPs implemented physical and mental boundaries by routinely shutting down computers and laptops, storing them away daily, or over weekends, or relocating work materials to different areas when not in use. For some, this ritual served as a substitute for the commute, providing essential mental separation during the workday. However, several participants noted a tendency to work longer hours than usual despite these efforts:

I think one of the things that was really important was closing your computer at night, at the end of the day, . . . ‘cos I think there was a danger actually that you never stopped working. You’d be sat at your computer doing things and you’d suddenly realise it’s three o’clock in the afternoon and you haven’t really had any lunch ‘cos you just crack on and you just keep going. Yeah, I think probably some people would actually over work, and not really be able to get away from it. (DASP5)

I always tried to, like, every week put my laptop in the bag and put my work bag in the cupboard so it was out of sight, but inevitably you’re like, well, I’m in this room again and this is where I have all those difficult conversations. (DASP7)

McCann and Pearlman (1990) highlighted the relationship between vicarious traumatisation and caring occupations, where professionals exposed to patients’ suffering can suffer direct negative effects or absorb these from working in trauma-informed environments. To limit the damage of exposure to distressing content, professionals undertake specialist training and engage in regular clinical and managerial supervision (Baird and Jenkins, 2003; Ben-Porat and Itzhaky, 2009). Such frameworks of care are necessary to limit the impact of vicarious traumatisation on high turnover rates of staff in care environments (Li et al., 2014). For DASPs, dedicating time and effort to maintain their own wellbeing was vital to ensure sustained support for DVA victims. These participants recognised the importance of acknowledging their own limits and needs, demonstrating a proactive approach to self-care (Andrews et al., 2020). Bell (2003) found that individuals who emulate positive coping models experience lower stress levels and develop resilient strategies for managing work-related challenges. DASPs with managerial responsibilities were particularly conscientious about their practices, mindful of their role in setting a positive example. This included refraining from sending emails after work hours and advocating for clear boundaries around work and personal time:

I think that feeds down to other staff as well when you’re saying, ‘No, I stop at five’, you know? If I notice that I’m feeling a bit run down, I take a few days off, I don’t, I don’t just try and push through, I allow myself a break. And I think it’s important to model that for others as well. (DASP13)

Andrews et al. (2020) highlighted that workers often require external validation to prioritise self-care. Therefore, DASPs who felt a duty to model a self-care behaviour likely had a positive impact on their colleagues, encouraging them to prioritise their own wellbeing.

Acknowledging and navigating guilt

DASPs’ reflections frequently highlighted feelings of personal and professional guilt. These feelings were often related to not being able to provide their usual level of service, not being able to respond to everyone needing help, and not being able to spend sufficient time with their own family members due to increased workloads:

You look in your diary you sort of think, well there’s a gap there, and yes, there is, but also if you fill it up completely you don’t have any processing power. You can’t hold on to who that client is. (DASP18)

I still wanted to reach the targets and sometimes I was quite drained in trying to do that, but I was still determined we were going to get a way around this and do it. And I wouldn’t expect anything less of me to do that, even though [the CEO] would say, ‘Well, no, you haven’t got to’, I still felt I had to do it, but that’s me. That’s my ethos, that’s the way I work. So yeah, that was a struggle at times. (DASP10)

As DASP10 highlights earlier, the management within this charitable organisation was proactively attempting to ameliorate some of the guilt being felt by those trying to work at pre-pandemic levels. Research by Cayir et al. (2021) underscores that effective management styles are built on trust, respect, and non-hierarchical approaches. DASPs expressed deep appreciation for the guidance and reassurance provided by senior management team members, especially during periods when they felt guilty about the constraints in service provision:

We couldn’t help but feel that, oh, are we really giving them a good service? Especially as our wait lists are really, really long, unfortunately, ‘cause we have so many referrals, so some people have waited for such a long time then all we can offer them is, like, this. . . . I think we just felt a bit of professional guilt in that sense. (DASP7)

That’s a big part of my working identity, my ability to do those things and all of a sudden I’m like, OK, now I’m just someone who’s nodding at the end of the phone, ‘cause I have no idea what’s going on anymore! So, I think that that was a combination of the impact of the pandemic on me, personally, but also the higher caseloads and trying to emotionally hold clients, where you’re already feeling kind of fragile because of the stuff that’s going on. (DASP18)

The feeling of emotional fragility outlined by DASP18 earlier is particularly pertinent as it indicates vulnerability and an awareness that victim/survivors are often seeking strong and stable reassurance. Some DASPs felt uncertain about these demonstrations of personal vulnerability and expressed guilt in relation to the heightened feelings of responsibility they held towards colleagues, clients, children, and companions. In addition, while DASPs recognised the importance of activities such as taking breaks while working from home, some reflected on internalised feelings of guilt and incurring judgement which hindered their ability to prioritise self-care:

I felt almost guilty. I wasn’t even getting up to make cups of tea in the beginning, and it was like, ‘What am I even doing?’ It was almost like I had to kind of provide more effort and prove that I am working. I’m at home, but I am working, you know? So yeah, just book that in your calendar. Book it out. I still don’t do that! (DASP8)

You know, there was always that as well at the back of your mind and it’s as if you had to prove you were doing it . . . I’m not running around 24/7 so they might think I’m not working? Yeah, that was always my biggest worry, that people might think you’re not working. And I spoke to a couple of people about that, and they said the same, even though, you know, we wasn’t meant to be putting ourselves out there and struggling and things like that. But again, that’s us, that’s the ethos of our work. That’s how we all feel, we want to be doing something. (DASP10)

Participants unfamiliar with working from home expressed concerns about the need to exceed expectations to demonstrate their productivity in a manner comparable to pre-pandemic times. Several DASPs expressed guilt, particularly noting that their (male) partners, often furloughed, were assuming the majority of domestic, caregiving, and homeschooling responsibilities. Others mentioned the difficulty of being in close proximity to family members, especially children, while struggling to allocate meaningful time with them:

I missed [her son] and, actually, going downstairs, I felt a bit guilty really, if I’m honest, ‘cos every time I got down there he clung to me, ‘cos he missed his mum but I didn’t have the time to give him. It was really tough, really, really tough. (DASP14)

Mum guilt. Because, as a single mom . . . I just felt like there was only so much I could do in the day and then still manage to do my work, and then obviously keep up with the school work and all of the additional parental pressures that every parent experiences. But then also the work guilt, which anyone gets if they even have a day off. So, it was just such a balancing act, really. (DASP17)

This mention of ‘mum guilt’ from DASP17, and the related emotional labour it invokes (Mikolajczak et al., 2007; Sanz-Vergel et al., 2012), resonates with findings from Frey et al. (2017), indicating that female workers often struggle more with balancing work and family responsibilities, which can impact confidence, performance, and stress levels. This is important to acknowledge given the high propensity for women to be employed in services based on some form of caregiving.

In addition, DASP17 was herself a survivor of DVA. She outlined less-visible situations where service users who have transitioned to be service providers may also be grappling with internalised and individualised manifestations of guilt:

Just dealing with your own triggers . . . Nine times out of ten people that do this job have their own experiences of domestic abuse so, things like that and those, kind of narratives [of guilt] and, and the internalisation of those triggers can feel really, really difficult in those already difficult circumstances. So having to, yeah, change the narrative and remind yourself, actually, there’s only so much that you can do. (DASP17)

While individuals with lived experience of DVA can bring valuable insights to their service provision, it is necessary to ensure adequate support to mitigate against vicarious trauma. Workers with personal trauma histories may be more susceptible to experiencing vicarious trauma than those without such histories (Pearlman and Mac Ian, 1995). Killian (2008) also noted that personal trauma histories contribute to compassion fatigue, suggesting that organisations should offer opportunities for helping professionals to process these traumas through counselling, thereby managing compassion fatigue. However, the remote working conditions imposed by the pandemic significantly complicated access to such support.

Re-evaluating and recognising success

The isolated and augmented working conditions meant DASPs had to redefine their criteria for ‘success’, fostering greater self-belief and confidence that they were making a beneficial impact. Communication anxiety arising from isolated working conditions can lead advocates to doubt their effectiveness, diminishing feelings of personal accomplishment and increasing fatigue (Babin et al., 2012). Recognising these limitations is especially important in the DVA sector, where roles entail heightened responsibility, particularly when the safety of victims/clients is at risk (Iliffe and Steed, 2000). As articulated by DASP3, it is vital to recognise one’s limits, to ‘realise that you can only do what you can do, and you can’t do everything’. However, she also underscored the pervasive sentiment in the DVA sector: ‘If we don’t do everything, then women will die even more’. Others echoed this sentiment, noting that they often serve as the primary professionals or specialists able to reach vulnerable victims in urgent situations with few other options for seeking help:

You became a really important service and a real lifeline for people because it just highlighted their lives, and the isolation of their lives because of domestic abuse . . . I felt like there was just a real connection that you were providing something that was really vital to people. (DASP13)

I remember, one mum in particular said that it really was like a sort of lifeline to the outside world for her son and he would always ask, ‘When are the sessions happening?’ (DASP7)

Nevertheless, adopting self-preservation strategies and redefining success necessitated a shift in mindset from a form of ‘prevention guilt’ to a more pragmatic outlook on what could realistically be achieved in the moment. This adaptive approach was evident in the DASPs’ narratives:

You can feel like you’re never doing enough. So, having that internal voice to say, ‘Actually you’re doing enough. You need to stop now because you’re not gonna have anything left if you carry on’. So, it’s not about saying you can’t cope, but that you have to respect your own limitations really and take notice of your stress levels. Be aware of what’s going on, for you, physically. (DASP13)

I think we’ve all got to stop at one point and say, we’ve done really, really well . . . we can be really realistic with what we want to deliver and listening to people. And I think we just continue to work out what’s best for our survivors and develop programmes where we can reach as many people as we can safely, without the impact on staff. But I’d just say, if I had to say, the main thing would just be realistic, be realistic about what I can do. (DASP14)

I think we’ve done really well to be able to still adapt and reach our clients. There’s only so much we can do, and I think we’ve probably gone above and beyond, so I don’t think I would necessarily change anything. (DASP17)

These narratives illustrate the participants’ readiness to embrace imperfection and recognise their humanity (Norrman Harling et al., 2020). Practitioners in Australia outlined similar sentiments around risk and the emotional toll of adjusting to significant changes to service delivery (Carrington et al., 2021: 551). Research by Schrag et al. (2022) also noted how the pandemic-inspired disruption to patterns and habits of service faced by the advocates in their study prompted similar pragmatic and psychological workarounds.

Linked to this, the DASP participants with managerial or supervisory responsibilities acutely recognised the importance of leadership on staff mentality:

There was a lot of time spent just trying to get people to change their mindset about what we could do. (DASP9)

However, a key catalyst of this shift towards viewing interactions as ‘successful’ was the heightened value DASPs placed on receiving positive feedback and heartfelt thanks from victims/clients during such challenging times. Recognition of their additional time, effort, and dedication bolstered DASPs’ feelings of accomplishment and motivation:

So then when people are actually like, ‘No, you know, we’ve really appreciated it and we’re so grateful for it’ then you kind of feel, OK, maybe we just have to shift our perspective of what it is actually that we’re offering during this time, and what we are offering is helpful. It might be different, but that’s OK, it’s still helpful. (DASP7)

For me, the most rewarding [part] was the continuation of the engagement. That, for me, spoke volumes because these are clients that have disengaged from services before, but actually I’ve still got them on my books. They’re still engaging. (DASP8)

Whenever you’ve made a difference to someone’s life and they tell you, that is always rewarding. . . . to know that you’ve made a difference and to hear that, ‘Thank you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support, and everyone has been great’. I’ll never get bored of hearing that. I think it’s what makes our jobs worthwhile. (DASP16)

This reassurance demonstrated how compassion satisfaction had a profound impact on DASPs’ perceptions of success and accomplishment. As outlined earlier, many DASPs expressed personal and professional fulfilment from witnessing the positive changes and improvements in the lives of victims/clients. Similar outcomes were highlighted by Berg and Soares (2023) who noted how some workers found being a key worker during the pandemic ‘motivating at times, increasing some workers’ engagement and reward from work . . . and recognition of their contribution to society’ (p. 34). Knowing that their efforts were recognised and appreciated by victims was vital in maintaining and reinforcing DASPs’ positive outlook, strength, and resilience. This recognition helped offset challenging periods and kept them focused on persevering and staying resilient. Stamm (2002) described this phenomenon as ‘reaping the rewards’ of trauma work, where seeing the tangible difference they made in people’s lives sustained workers during difficult experiences. Similarly, Guhan and Liebling-Kalifani (2011) found that staff reported that the gratitude expressed by clients outweighed the negative aspects of their job. Participants derived genuine joy and satisfaction from aiding in the rebuilding of victims’ trust. They reflected on the immense gratification of witnessing victims reconnect with themselves while reaching out to others as part of their healing journey:

You forget that actually, wow, like, sometimes our clients hang on every word that we say and what a privilege that is, and I’ll try and remember that every day even when it’s proper stressful. Yeah, so I’m lucky to be able to do this job. I love it. (DASP6)

Limitations

While primary data collection is a vital avenue for the production of new knowledge, this study is not without its limitations. The study employed a purposeful sampling method from a single domestic abuse charity; therefore, sampling bias limits the generalisability of the findings in situations characterised by different operational contexts or resources. The study also included a relatively small number of participants (18 DASPs) who do not capture the full diversity of experiences or perspectives within the wider DASP community. It does not capture the realities of domestic abuse organisations operating, for example, in rural areas; with a specific ‘by and for’ remit (i.e. meeting the needs of minoritised communities); with minimal income; with much smaller or much larger staff numbers; or in areas characterised by higher need and/or lower socio-economic status. The participants in this study voluntarily opted in, potentially biasing the sample towards individuals who were more comfortable discussing their experiences or who had stronger opinions about the topic. From an ethical standpoint, conducting the research remotely via online software presented challenges in the form of limited interpersonal access to participants while discussing sensitive topics and difficulties ensuring comprehensive support for participant wellbeing. While these challenges were mitigated where possible, the limitations of remote and online data collection were acknowledged by the researchers.