Date

4-29-2026

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

Sharita Knobloch

Keywords

Job Stress, Burnout, Crisis, Mental Health, Coping Strategies, Community Response Team

Disciplines

Counseling | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of counselors working as Community Response Team (CRT) first responders for mental health crises and to describe how they cope with job stress and burnout. The study involved 12 participants who were interviewed via Zoom. Participants were selected using criterion sampling, and the research sites were located in the Metropolitan area of the east-central United States (Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia). The theoretical framework guiding this study was the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (TMSC) developed by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Recent literature on job stress and burnout, including the coping strategies used by other first responders, was also investigated. While Lazarus and Folkman, (1984) mentioned two types of coping strategies (problem-focused coping and emotional-focused coping), this research focused primarily on emotional-focused coping strategies. The data was collected through participant interviews conducted via Zoom. The proposed data collection and analysis strategies were followed and analyzed using NVivo 15 through coding to identify themes and subthemes. Based on these themes and subthemes, discussions of the findings, implications, delimitations and limitations, recommendations for future research, and summary are presented.

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