Burnout. Compassion fatigue. Both terms connote emotional exhaustion. Child Protection Service (CPS) workers seem to be disproportionately susceptible. Because they comprise the essential frontline of the child protection system, their emotional exhaustion can quickly affect a negative domino series of consequences: shoddy work, low morale, worker turnover, and a potential erosion of the legal rights of the very children and families they ideally want to protect.