‘At Times it’s Too Difficult, it is Too Traumatic, it’s Too Much’: The Emotion Work of Domestic Abuse Helpline Staff During Covid-19

Chloe Maclean, Zara Brodie, Roxanne Hawkins and Jack Cameron McKinlay
Additional contact information
Chloe Maclean: University of the West of Scotland, UK
Zara Brodie: University of the West of Scotland, UK
Roxanne Hawkins: University of the West of Scotland, UK
Jack Cameron McKinlay: University of the West of Scotland, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2024, vol. 38, issue 5, 1267-1284

Abstract: During the Covid-19 lockdowns, domestic abuse helpline staff (DAHS) in the UK faced both a shift from working in an office to working-from-home and an increased demand for their services. This meant that during Covid-19, DAHS faced an increase in traumatic calls, and all within their own homes. This article explores the emotions work of DAHS to manage and work through their work-related emotions during Covid-19. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 11 UK-based DAHS, this article suggests that working-from-home during the Covid-19 lockdowns amplified emotions of anxiety, helplessness and guilt for DAHS alongside an evaporating emotional distance between work and home life. Engaging in leisure activities and increased online meetings with colleagues were emotion work practices that DAHS used to emotionally cope. This article demonstrates that emotion work fills in for, and masks, the structural insufficiencies of employer worker-wellbeing practices.

Keywords: Covid-19; domestic abuse; emotional reflexivity; emotion work; helpline (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170231200080 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:38:y:2024:i:5:p:1267-1284

DOI: 10.1177/09500170231200080

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().