Coronavirus Pandemic - Some Events Postponed

We are thinking of everyone impacted by the Coronavirus. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, our concern for everybody's health and safety is paramount, our events planned for this spring are postponed. We apologise for any inconvenience this force majeure may cause and will keep you informed as the changes roll out. Stay and be safe and healthy!

How Are You? Sweden

We are pleased to report that we have already set new dates for the How Are You? seminar planned in Sweden originally for May. Thank you to our host, Skånes Djurpark, for helping us find a fast solution! The seminar will now be held on 5 & 6 September 2020. Please see the information for the seminar below:

Workshop in Sweden. Join us for a 2-day workshop which will provide you with a theoretical and practical overview of strategies related to compassion awareness, including preventing and addressing compassion fatigue, and enhancing compassion satisfaction and resilience.

5th & 6th September 2020

Limited to 40 participants.

Organised in collaboration with and hosted by Skånes Djurpark.

How are you? Providing care for wild animals in zoos and aquariums brings many joys and positive experiences, but can also leave you emotionally drained or numb by negative experiences. Animal caregivers, curators, veterinarians, researchers, and other animal welfare staff, often have high levels of compassion, empathy, and drive to care for others and affect change. This workshop provides you with a theoretical and practical overview of strategies related to compassion awareness, including preventing and addressing compassion fatigue, and enhancing compassion satisfaction and resilience. We will be drawing on experiences and research literature, and include a wide variety of practical activities and tools for you, including resources for you to take home.

Location

Skånes Djurpark, Sweden

Language

English

Spaces are still available, if you are interested you can sign up here. You can also learn more through the event's Facebook page.

How Are You? UK

It is with much regret we must inform you that for health and safety reasons the seminar in May has been postponed until further notice.

We thank you for your patience as we reorganise during this force majeure.

EAZA Animal Welfare Forum 2020 Postponed

Writtle University College Animal Welfare Workshop

Sabrina recently visited Writtle University College to present as a guest speaker on “Animal Care Professionals and Hummingbirds: Positive Animal Welfare through Global Collaboration and Small Actions Every Day” for university students of animal welfare. Thank you to all who attended and thank you for the invitation Writtle University College, looking forward to being back! In the days since, a number of students have been sharing their feedback about the success of the event. Below are a couple of our favourites – thank you for sharing Keri and Zoe!

Compassion Awareness Facebook Group

“Compassion awareness - awareness around compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction - is key in the animal care profession in order for animal care professionals to serve animals and people with compassion and integrity.”

- Sabrina Brando -

Do you want to learn more about compassion awareness? Check out the Compassion Awareness Facebook group! This group is a joined commitment by Kelli Inglis, Jo Thrower, and Sabrina Brando who post self-care tips, articles, jokes, and other content encouraging self-care, create awareness around compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction, and have a good laugh too!

This is a closed group to create a safe environment for sharing stories and asking questions. All members of the group are invited to post content, their stories and questions, anything relevant to this topic.

Together we can create a feeling of care, belonging, and support, that is is 'OK not to be OK', and importantly, that you can find professional help in your community through health care professionals who are trained to support those with feeling of for example, overwhelm, burn out, depression, and/or loneliness. Your community can also be your friends, family, sports club, volunteering program, or other. This group can be 1 of the places you can go for a listening ear or a laugh.

The importance is to really listen and become aware of your psychological wellbeing in the early stages, and to seek help as often you cannot do this alone, you do not have to do this alone, no one should. By having good boundaries, self care rituals, communication, and other practices in place, you can aim to prevent these negative feelings, states, and thoughts.

This group is for animal care professionals who want to learn about compassion, including fatigue, satisfaction, and importantly, resilience. Resiliency skills will allow you to take care of yourself and your wellbeing. It is a community to learn, grow and change through the understanding and implementation of provided resources.

Through sharing stories, discussions, a variety of practices to help create healthy boundaries and promoting positive wellbeing, we hope that this group forms one of the building blocks for your positive wellbeing through which you can continue to serve animals and people with compassion and integrity.

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