Co-Creating Ritual Grief Practices & Resiliency Tools in Veterinary Medicine

As veterinary and animal care professionals, we engage with intense forms of emotion (including grief) on a daily basis. Whether these emotions are our own, our colleagues, or our clients and patients, in order to maintain our emotional health and safety, we require emotional hygiene and emotional ergonomic practices that mirror the biosecurity and physical hygiene rituals already acknowledged as essential for quality healthcare practices.

We join with other members of our local Colorado and global veterinary community in a continuous practice of co-creating care, support, and emotional hygiene protocols for our community. Virtual and in-person connection spaces to allow animal care professionals to connect, fellowship, process their own emotional load, and support their colleagues in processing of emotions we encounter, daily, as practitioners.

Reaching this $1000 fundraising goal allows our team to provide licensed mental health professionals in support of our community's emotional hygiene needs in the year 2025. This includes staffing veterinary social workers, veterinary-knowledgeable therapists, and colleague-led support teams at events and during community conversations that are necessary, but potentially triggering for members of our community.

We strive to connect with licensed mental health care professionals that have both veterinary-industry knowledge and an existing and embedded relationship within our community. We are actively seeking novel solutions to the professional grief experienced in the everyday routine of veterinary and animal-care professionals.

Upcoming support for:

June 5-7 2026 | Pscyhedelic Substances in Veterinary Medicine (PSVetMed) | Veterinary Colleague Connection
June 19-20 | 2026 World Congress on Planetary Health & Disaster Exercise

We are honored to have supported these past events:

June 6 2025 | Community Grief Ritual | A Healing Bridge
June 16-22 | 2025 World Congress on Planetary Health & Disaster Exercise
May 16 l Community Grief Ritual | The Radical Act of Grieving Well
Feb 18 2025 | Protest against veterinary workplace violence - Mourning the Loss of Dr. Héctor Hernández Cañas
August 2024 | Responding to Veterinary Workplace Violence
July 2024 | Front Range Veterinary Medical Reserve Corp during Alexander Mtn Fire response
May 2024 | Bridging virtual and physical spaces - World Congress on Planetary Health 2024 & Disaster Exercise

Care for the Healer (CFTH) | Compassion Program

Practical, relevant, and culturally-embedded resiliency support for health professionals

Team Members