Occupational Well‐Being and Compassion Fatigue Among Child Protection Social Workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan: A Qualitative Exploration of Ecological and Culturally Grounded Coping

ABSTRACT Child protection social work in low‐resource and conflict‐affected settings can pose substantial challenges to practitioners' occupational well‐being; however, these challenges remain underexplored in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Drawing on semistructured interviews with 22 practitioners from the KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission, district Social Welfare Department offices, international NGOs and local NGOs, and using reflexive thematic analysis, this study examined how these workers experience and cope with the demands of their work. The findings indicate that participants' occupational distress was not reducible to compassion fatigue: Alongside trauma intrusion, it encompassed structural distress arising from institutional unpreparedness and, for those affected by the state‐mandated deportation of Afghan refugees, distress consistent with moral injury. Participants emphasized the significance of Islamic spiritual practices and peer solidarity as vital coping resources, especially in the absence of formal institutional support. These findings suggest the potential value of culturally responsive, trauma‐informed approaches to workforce well‐being that recognize locally grounded practices and contribute to ongoing discussions of epistemic decolonization in occupational well‐being scholarship.