ORIGINAL ARTICLE Helping the helpers: Post‐traumatic distress and need for help among Israeli social workers in foster care agencies following armed conflict Miriam Schiff PhD 1 | Rachel Dekel PhD 2 | Ohad Gilbar MSW 2 | Rami Benbenishty PhD 2 1 Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel 2 The Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar‐Ilan University, Ramat‐Gan 52900, Israel Correspondence Miriam Schiff, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Email: miriam.schiff@mail.huji.ac.il Funding information JDC‐Israel‐Ashalim; Mass Trauma Research: Israel Center of Research Excellence Abstract This study examined the associations between exposure to armed conflict, perceived support, work experience, needing help, and post‐traumatic distress among Israeli social workers in foster care agencies based on Conservation of Resources theory. The study used a mixed‐methods design. Six months after the end of an armed conflict, 82 social workers responded to a web‐ based questionnaire with closed‐ and open‐ended questions. Results showed that exposure to the armed conflict was moderately associated with post‐traumatic stress symptoms and functional impairment. Only the workers' perceived need for personal help (but not help for professional matters) was positively associated with their psychological distress. The qualitative analysis suggests that social workers showed strengths and wanted help mainly to improve their professional skills. Yet they also elaborated on the complexities involved in conducting their professional work, especially home visits, because such visits put their own lives in danger and meant deserting their own families. Practice implications are as follows: Foster care agencies should make greater efforts to provide knowledge and skills, support, supervision, and a “safe haven” for their workers, in the context of armed conflict. KEYWORDS armed conflict, foster care, needing help, PTSD, shared trauma, social workers 1 | INTRODUCTION Social workers and other professionals report Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology stemming from their direct exposure to disasters (Brooks, Dunn, Amlôt, Greenberg, & Rubin, 2016; Dekel, Hantman, Ginzburg, & Solomon, 2007; Lev‐Wiesel, Goldblatt, Eisikovits, & Admi, 2009) and, in cases of shared traumatic realities, from the traumatic experiences they share with their clients (Baum, 2014; Tosone, Nuttman‐Shwartz, & Stephens, 2012). Studies con- ducted in hospitals located in the vicinity of rocket strikes and where patients who were injured or had acute traumatic stress reactions were treated show that the exposure to the suffering of the patients along with external reality of the armed conflict events take a heavy toll on the mental health of hospital personnel. These effects have been shown to occur both during and 6 months after the end of the armed conflict (Ben‐Ezra, Palgi, Wolf, & Shrira, 2011; Koren et al., 2009). This study was conducted in Israel, among foster care practi- tioners, 6 months after the conclusion of Operation Protective Edge (Herby armed conflict), which lasted from July 8 to August 26, 2014. This conflict took the lives of civilians on both sides. Israeli civilians were exposed to the threat of more than 4,500 missiles being fired from the Gaza Strip (Ben‐Ezra & Bibi, 2016). We explored foster care social workers' level of exposure to the armed conflict events, their current post‐traumatic symptoms, and their functional impair- ment (i.e., post‐traumatic distress), as well as the type of help they needed using a mixed study design. Social workers who work in the foster care system are especially prone to psychological distress following their engagement with foster families who live in war zones. These families are having added stress, as exposure to war events for these families adds to the pre‐existing stress of being caregivers for already‐traumatized children (Kerns et al., 2016). Moreover, most of the social workers' practice work involves home visits, which can mean—during times of armed conflict—travelling in extremely dangerous conditions. We used the Conservation of Resources (COR; Hobfoll, 1989) as a theoretical framework to explain the sources of the negative effects experienced by practitioners in the context of armed conflict, as well as the potential protective factors against those consequences. DOI: 10.1111/cfs.12438 466 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Child & Family Social Work. 2018;23:466–474. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cfs