Acute Self-Care for Veterinary Professionals (SCV100)

The first session provides a framework to the course by discussing stressors, self-care and self-compassion in the context of veterinary and shelter medicine. You will be provided an overview of the self-care tools and self-care plan to be addressed throughout the course.

Improve your ability to self-regulate through the use of grounding tools including conscious breathing, present moment awareness/mindfulness, visualization and self-soothing.

Improve your physiological functioning through a focus on somatic practices as well as health promotion tools including sleep hygiene, nutrition, nature, micro-exercises, meditation, laughter and crying.

Enhance your self-awareness skills through non-toxic validation and acceptance tools focusing on building emotional literacy and processing. Deepen your ability to reframe unhelpful thought patterns through distress tolerance, reappraisal and gratitude.

Improve your ability to establish boundaries through self-reflective exercises combined with concrete tools and practices (empathic assertions, conflict management, effective debriefing).

The final session integrates tools from weeks 2 to 5, with a focus on celebrating wins, addressing potential roadblocks to success and developing accountability tools.

The program will be offered online using synchronous and asynchronous modalities. For weeks 2 to 6, foundational material will be provided to learners to view at the beginning of the week. The expectation is that tools will be practiced during the week and the synchronous portion of the class will be utilized for deeper processing and application.