Beste SAVAB collega,

Graag verspreiden we een persbericht van FECAVA, FVE en IVSA:

Brussels, 10 October 2025. To celebrate World Mental Health Day, FVE, FECAVA and IVSA present the second year of our mental wellbeing platform www.vetjoy.org, featuring a jointly developed comprehensive toolkit, to champion mental well-being across the veterinary profession. VetJoy.org addresses these challenges head-on, with resources tailored holistically all along the career path to support mental well-being, DEI, and resilience-building for veterinary professionals. Thanks to the generous funding from Zoetis and its Foundation, the toolkit offers a broad range of enhanced resources, including workplace coaching vouchers, a mentoring programme, podcasts, videos, articles and much more. This year’s initiatives included:

• The Great Veterinary Workplaces Award, celebrating veterinary workplaces excelling in well-being, leadership, and work-life balance. The 2025 winners are Vita-Vet (North Macedonia) in the small/medium non-clinical workplace category, Hall Mark Veterinary and Compliance Services (United Kingdom) in the large non-clinical workplace category, Clinica Veterinaria Giaconella (Italy) in the small/medium clinical workplace category and Tierarztpraxis am Stadtpark (Austria) in the large clinical workplace category.
• The VetJoy Team Coaching Voucher programme aims to support veterinary teams to improve their mental wellbeing thanks to 79 vetted coaches. In 2025, 23 clinical and 6 non-clinical workplaces across nine European countries were supported so far. The VetJoy vouchers are extremely popular, all vouchers were already allocated by September. 
• The VetJoy DEI research grant aims to support European veterinary medicine students’ research proposals on DEI in the veterinary profession. The grant went to Virginia Conforti with her research project The Holy Paradox, exploring the position of female veterinarians working at abattoirs, specifically in religious abattoirs for kosher and halal products.

Ann Criel, FECAVA President, said: “We are delighted to celebrate the winners of the second Great Veterinary Workplace Award as workplaces that promote psychological safety, regular appraisals, flexibility, fostering workplace wellbeing and demonstrating outstanding leadership!”

Speaking on behalf of IVSA Europe, Eirini Polygerou added: “It became evident that research on DEI in the European veterinary profession remains limited. We are delighted to help address this gap with the launch of the DEI research grant initiative to support its significance!"

FVE President Siegfried Moder concluded: “Veterinary workplaces across Europe can access valuable resources for free through www.vetjoy.org, including the hands-on Veterinary Team Coaching Vouchers, articles, helplines, podcasts, videos, courses, and much more!"

Learn more about this year’s winners, stay tuned for the reopening of all initiatives in 2026 and discover all resources on www.vetjoy.org!