Book excerpt: Becoming a child welfare professional should come with a warning: "beware - this may change you forever and can be dangerous." The change, however, may be good if you can learn to cope with the stress of the work and grow from the experience. Secondary Traumatic Stress and the Child Welfare Professional, a first-of-its kind book, presents the tools to help child welfare practitioners and agency managers identify and provide practical and appropriate interventions. This book is based on the authors' ten-year study of over 600 child welfare practitioners' experience with traumatic stress and child welfare.