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Volunteers of America touches the lives of almost 1.5 million people in 400 communities across the United States each year. Since 1896, our highly-trained and dedicated staff, numbered at over 16,000, and volunteer corps have worked, not only to serve those in need, but also have strived to innovate and transform the way in which these services are delivered.

Moral injury is a relatively recent term used to describe a crisis that soldiers have faced for centuries, the internal suffering that results from doing something against your moral code. In essence it is a wound to the conscience. However, it is not just military members that can experience this. And what is this?

It is soul anguish, a broken spirit, a shredded soul.

Anyone who works with marginalized, at-risk populations has probably seen that empty stare that can be moral injury. People in poverty. People struggling with addiction. People whose daily lives and their choices erode their feeling of being a good and decent person, worthy of respect. People who carry unprocessed grief and guilt in ordinary life. People with stressful life-and-death type situational jobs such as police officers, doctors and nurses. Because of things we do, witness, are ordered to do, or fail to do in high stakes situations. We can lose our moral foundations and our sense of being a good person.