Shayna Morrison, a PhD student in the Administration and
Leadership Studies Program, recently presented the research work of MARTI-CBH faculty and researchers at the 2019 Eastern Sociological Society meeting in
Boston, Massachusetts.
Shayna presented the research work titled “‘We enable them
because we give them free Narcan’: The narrative work of compassion fatigue
among first responders in the opioid epidemic.”
This research focuses on understanding
how rural first responders use self-narratives to manage their emotions in
response to the opioid crisis, negotiate expectations of their own resiliency,
and disengage from work that is often quite personal.
Morrison said of her experience at the conference, “It was
such an honor presenting our work at this year’s ESS Conference,” adding,
“Everyone was so engaged with our research. The conversation was lively and
layered.”
Lead author for the paper, Christian Vaccaro, said of
the research, “Learning more about the self-narratives of first responders will
hopefully lead to more useful tools and training for coping with difficult
responses and maintaining quality services on difficult calls.”
This paper is part of the MARTI-CBH Opioid Prevention and
Community Health (OPACH) initiative to develop new tools to combat the current
crisis.