A Fight for All Women: Social Change as a Framework for Meaning Among Professionals Working With Gender-Based Violence Survivors

Research on work with survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) has primarily focused on its emotional burden and implications for practitioners' well-being. This study explores how professionals working in GBV services experience and make sense of their work, drawing on 23 interviews analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Participants' accounts revealed challenges related to the persistence of GBV and sexism in society and to job precarity, but also highlighted the meaning they attribute to their work as a political commitment to supporting women and contributing to social change. The findings underscore the importance of understanding practitioners' well-being within the broader social and political context of GBV work.