The Australian Veterinary Association receives renewed investment from the Zoetis Foundation to support its flagship veterinary wellbeing program – Cultivating Safe Teams
The Australian Veterinary Association (AVA) has secured a USD $150,000 grant from the Zoetis Foundation to expand Cultivating Safe Teams, the flagship program of its THRIVE wellbeing initiative which is leading the effort to stamp out psychological harm in veterinary workplaces.
The funding provided by Zoetis Foundation will help the AVA pursue an ambitious goal: to train every veterinary professional in Australia to spot and manage the psychosocial risks that put their colleagues at risk. Since 2023, over 1300 veterinary professionals have completed the training.
“Veterinary teams do extraordinary work under real pressure, and for too long the toll of that pressure has gone unaddressed,” said AVA President, Dr Diana Barker. “This grant enables us to take a program that works and put it in front of every veterinary professional in the country. We are grateful for the Zoetis Foundation’s support in supercharging CST and its impact in 2026.”
Cultivating Safe Teams was designed in response to the AVA’s 2021 Veterinary Stakeholder Wellness Survey, which laid bare the scale of the problem: two in three veterinary professionals had experienced a mental health condition, and almost half said work was harming their mental health.
The program was designed around busy clinic schedules, with a one-hour awareness session grounded in evidence-based workplace psychological health and safety frameworks and tailored to the realities of veterinary practice. The results speak for themselves: 93 per cent of participants found it useful, 94 per cent found it relevant, and confidence to identify psychosocial hazards rose by 60 per cent.
“Proactive management of psychosocial risk is now the law in every Australian jurisdiction, so there has never been a more important time to act,” said Dr Barker. “This is about more than compliance. It is about building workplaces where people are safe, supported and want to stay — and that is good for our people, our patients and the future of the profession.”
With demand growing, the program is expanding beyond awareness into implementation. A new offering, CST ACTION, equips workplace champions to run a validated risk assessment and design targeted initiatives for their own hazard profile, backed by coaching from organisational psychologists, self-paced modules and peer-to-peer learning. Expressions of interest for the 2027 program are open now on the AVA website.
“The veterinary profession is foundational to animal health, and the professionals caring for animals deserve workplaces that protect their wellbeing,” said Jeannette Ferran Astorga, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs at Zoetis and President of the Zoetis Foundation. “We are proud to support the AVA in scaling a program that is already making a measurable difference to veterinary teams across Australia.”
Cultivating Safe Teams is delivered with the support of the Zoetis Foundation, Crampton Consulting Group, Hill’s Pet Nutrition and Troy.
Veterinary teams ready to take the pledge can book a one-hour AWARE training session on the AVA website or contact Executive Officer for Wellbeing, Dr Rebecca Faris, at thrive@ava.com.au.
