Resources to help you, and those around you
Interactive online training tool
For AVA members: Through the generosity and support of the team at LivingWorks, all AVA members have access to the LivingWorks START program (until 30 June 2021). It is an interactive online training tool that will provide you with the skills and knowledge to keep family, friends and colleagues safe from suicide.
See here for information on accessing the program.
Information sheets
These information sheets are part of the AVA's Telephone Counselling Service and can be downloaded and used for yourself or for your workplace.
Fact sheets
- Support for people who have experienced domestic violence in Australia
- About domestic violence and tips for offering support and taking action
- Facts and signs of violence to help victims of domestic violence
- Advice for those experiencing domestic violence, directly or indirectly
- Healthy and abusive relationships and sources of help
- Advice for anyone who is approached by a victim of domestic violence
Posters
- Life is full of challenges and hope
- Use the darkness of your past to propel you to a brighter future
- Unless men are active allies, we’ll never end violence against women and girls
- One in four children are exposed to domestic violence
- Not all wounds are visible
- They always say it will never happen again
- Walking away from something unhealthy is brave
- Speak out. Silence hides violence
- Sure relationships include arguments, but pain is not a side-effect of love
- A house that is unsafe is not a home
- Targeted towards women currently experiencing domestic violence
- You will face many defeats in your life, but never let yourself be defeated
Fact sheets
- Successful work and personal relationships at work
- Tips to healthy relationships and resolving conflict
- Understanding what makes a positive relationship
- Tips for couples to have a successful and rewarding relationship
- Tips to learn the skill of assertive communication
- How mutual respect when communicating can result in a win-win situation
- Things to consider when trying to resolve conflict
Posters
- A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out
- No road is long with good company
- The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands
- The importance of conversation
- A good relationship is having someone who accepts your past, supports your present, and encourages your future.
Fact sheets
- Practical suggestions to help you reduce Christmas stress this year
- Tips To help you get back your zest
- Warning signs of stress or depression over the Christmas period
- Dealing with others and yourself during the Christmas gathering
- The holiday season can present stresses around time and money
- Demystifies some of the expectations during the festive season
Posters
Fact sheets
- Hints for managers
- Supporting people in communities affected by floods & natural disasters
- Providing support to crisis affected people
- Coping with traumatic events
- It is critical that actions are taken early to reduce risks
- Understand the signs of a mental health condition and how to help
- How we can best help a friend or family member who is having difficulties
Posters
- Sometimes we need support to stand strong
- Depression is not a sign of weakness
- Wworkmates notice when something is not quite right
- Encouragement and hope are the two most powerful qualities
- Be the reason someone smiles today
- We rise by lifting others
- By helping others, you will learn how to help yourselves
Factsheets
- Mental health check in tip sheet and checklist
- Mental health check in flyer
- Features tips and advice on checking that you and your teammates are OK.
- Seeking help for depression or anxiety can have many benefits.
- Tips for overcoming depression
- Understanding mental health challenges
- Do’s, don’ts and resources
- Follow these positive steps to get back to a state of mental wellness
- Take proactive and positive steps to maintain mental wellbeing
- A guide for managing employees reporting thoughts of self-harm
- Finding it difficult to find the time or strategies to be mindful in your life?
- Exercises to live with more awareness
- Making behavioural change towards a healthy lifestyle
- Discovering how to manage priorities and get a balance that's right for you
- How we determine our own happiness through our perspective and decisions
- Covers the physical stress suffered from high temperatures
- Signs of stress after a traumatic event and coping suggestions
- Coping with the trauma of floods & natural disasters
- Mens health
- Men and depression
- Awareness of men’s health issues and tips for maintaining wellbeing
- Making time to be a dad and men's mental health
- Tips to get started making lifestyle changes.
- Steps that can successfully assist in breaking bad habits for the long term.
- How to abandon old habits and make lifestyle changes.
- Navigating change (for staff)
- Navigating change (for managers)
- Navigating change in the new year
- How to start the new year off with a fresh focus and renewed energy
- Tips for keeping resolutions rather than setting the same ones every year
- Behavior change takes time and perseverance
- Setting goals using the SMART approach
- Powerful written goals in seven easy steps
- 7 Steps to making change and making them stay for good
Posters
- Sometimes we need someone to simply be there
- Change the negative, self-loathing thoughts to positive, self-affirming ones
- The mind and the body are not separate. What affects one, affects the other
- Mental health is everyone’s business
- Learning to manage challenges
- One small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day
- We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give
- Being happy lies in the power of finding happiness in common things
- Your own self-realisation is the greatest service you can render to the world
- Don't let the world blow your candle out
- Minfulness and happiness
- 1 in 5 men will experience anxiety in their lives
- Mental health begins with me
- You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life
- Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts
- Breaking old habits and forming new ones
- Successful people are simply those with successful habits
- Happiness is a habit – cultivate it
- The changes ahead and building resilience
- Our ability to adapt is amazing. Our ability to change isn’t quite as spectacular
- Your goals are road maps that guide you
- A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline
- Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it.
- Be proud of every step you take towards reaching that goal
- Motivation gets you moving. Determination keeps you going
Fact sheets
- Advice and strategies for achieving work/life balance
- Communication and collaboration tip sheet
- Communication and collaboration flyer
- Quick tips for work life balance
- Tips for achieving a work life balance
- Overcoming difficulties in a professional relationship
- Some tips for getting to common ground at work
- Creating healthy workplaces (comprehensive version)
- Workplace wellbeing is a continuous commitment
- Workplaces can play an active role in developing and maintaining wellbeing
- Psychological injury and stress can occur in any workplace
- Going on parental leave
- Returning to work from parental leave
- How organisational change can create uncertainty
- Celebrating diversity in the workplace
- Celebrating diversity in the workplace (comprehensive version)
- Celebrating diversity in the workplace (short version)
- Workplaces are becoming multicultural and cross-generational communities.
- Tips to help you participate in respectful cross cultural communication
- Effective communication with someone who seems different to you
- Supporting employees and managing work performance
- About Manager Assist coaching and advisory service for managers.
- The requirements and challenges of being a parent
Posters
- Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back
- Being successful means having a balance of success stories
- Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create
- Always take some of the play, fun, freedom and wonder of the weekend into your week and your work
- Genuine collaboration is an environment that promotes many positives
- If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself
- Nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.
- Teamwork represents a set of values that encourage positive behaviours
- You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life
- Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create
- The balance has to be within you
- Organisation is about efficiency and improving your quality of life
- You can’t have everything and do everything at the same time
- Knowing how to get along with people
- When "I" is replaced by "We" even illness becomes wellness
- Good people, bring out the good in other people
- Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours
- We are a team because we trust, respect and care for each other
- Working together
- A psychologically healthy workplace fosters employee health and wellbeing
- A psychologically healthy workplace enhances organisational performance
- Anyone can start today and make a new ending
- Strength lies in differences, not in similarities
- Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation
- Diversity: the art of thinking independently together
- A lot of different flowers make a bouquet
- We need no language to laugh
- Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures
- Debate and divergence of views can only enrich our history and culture
- To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others
- Winning workplaces are built on successful teams (female group)
- Winning workplaces are built on successful teams (male group)
- Good communication helps personal relationships
Articles, organisations & surveys
Other resources to help you and those around you including checklists, apps and other items across a range of topics on mental health and wellbeing.
Articles and surveys
- List of support services for download
- "Vets in Mind" mental wellbeing app
- A guide for managing employees reporting thoughts of self-harm - Converge
- Occupational mobility and suicide media release - 2016
- VetSet2Go - Building veterinary employability - 2016
- Psychological well-being of Australian veterinarians - 2009
- Suicide in Australian veterinarians - 2008
General information and other resources
- Beyond Blue
- Beyond Blue - Anxiety checklist
- Beyond Blue - Understanding anxiety and depression
- Self Appreciation Day
- Blue pages - Information on treatments for depression based on the latest scientific evidence.
- BUPA Healthier Workplaces - Resource tools available for managing mind, body health - 2016
- BUPA - Emotional health in the workplace
- CALM -Computer assisted learning for the mind
- Converge - Creating healthy workplaces poster
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP) connect app - Information and support for issues that impact your work, health and life.
- Heads up - The Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance
- LifeLine - self help tools
- Makeheadway - Wellness poster by Dr Cathy Warburton
- Mental health first aid app
- Mental health first aid - guidelines and fact sheets relating to depression, anxiety and other disorders
- MindHealthConnect
- MoodGYM - Free online cognitive behaviour program, to help you identify and overcome problem emotions.
- MyCompass - Self-help tool for individuals to better self manage mild to moderate symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress.
- Self Compassion - guided meditations
- Smiling Mind - Mindfulness meditation programs - 2016
- Suicide Prevention Pathways - Suicide awareness services and programs
- The Webinar Vet - Mindfulness recorded sessions - 2017
- This way up - Online learning courses and tools to help with depression and anxiety.
- Vetlife- The British Veterinary Association website on the health and welfare of veterinarians.
- There are also a range of free meditation apps available for download.
In need of emergency help?
Help is available at any time, day or night on Lifeline 13 11 14 and the AVA Counselling Service 1300 687 327.