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News & Reports health and wellbeing
Encouraging peer support in veterinary schools Liverpool veterinary school has offered a peer support service to its students since 2009. Recently, the vet school hosted a conference aimed at promoting the peer support service and at encouraging other vet schools to set up similar systems for their own students. Katie Wright, a current peer supporter at Liverpool, describes the day. On April 26, the Liverpool vet school peer supporters hosted a conference entitled ‘Supporting vets and students at university and beyond’ at the Leahurst campus on the Wirral. The event, which was supported by the RCVS, aimed to promote the peer support service and encourage other vet schools to establish similar services. A booklet offering step-by-step guidance and advice on how to set up and run a peer support service in a veterinary school was also launched. Liverpool vet school’s peer support service is a confidential support system set up in 2009 by Tina Usherwood (VR, June 25, 2011, vol 168, pp 658-659). Currently, there are 40 peer supporters, who have all undergone 30 hours of professional training by the university’s counselling service, so they are better equipped to help students within the vet school. Peer supporters communicate with students via e-mail, talks, posters and an intranet page. They can be contacted through their university e-mail and the team meets regularly for reflective practice. Reflective practice provides supervision to ensure safe and supported practice. Peer support is seen as a huge asset to the vet school and the RCVS has commended the peer support system. Fifty delegates attended the recent conference, including heads of veterinary schools, senior tutors, welfare staff and representatives from counselling services at Liverpool, Glasgow, Surrey, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin universities and the Royal Veterinary College. BVA, RCVS and Veterinary Benevolent Fund (VBF) representatives were also present, as were representatives from the Association of Veterinary Students. During the day, Anne Ford, the peer support programme co-coordinator at the University of Oxford, discussed the importance of peer support. Tina Usherwood, the peer support programme coordinator at Liverpool university, gave a presentation on setting up a peer support service, as well as the importance of peer support in veterinary schools. A graduate vet peer supporter also spoke about the benefits of using her skills in practice. The Liverpool vet school peer supporters demonstrated
Speakers at the recent conference together with some of the Liverpool vet school peer supporters
how a reflective practice session worked, to give an insight into the service, which was highly valued by delegates. An informative talk about the Veterinary Surgeons’ Health Support Programme was given by Rory O’Connor, the programme’s national coordinator. Rosie Allister, of the VBF, presented up-to-date research on health and wellbeing in vet students and graduates. Miss Allister’s talk summarised the concern at levels of workplace stress and mental health problems in vets, which also affect vet students. She noted that the suicide risk among vets was three to four times that of the general population. Within the veterinary profession there were occupational stressors that had an important role in veterinary distress, such as long working hours, heavy workload, poor work-life balance and involvement in animal euthanasia. Miss Allister explained that research had suggested that subgroups of the profession might be at an increased risk, including female vets, younger vets and those working alone. The transition to practice was considered to be a challenging time for new graduates, she said, but factors affecting new graduates during transition and how these factors interacted were not well understood. She reported that the Vet Helpline received more calls from recent graduates than
from any other group. Her presentation provoked discussion among delegates at the conference about the future of supporting veterinary students in vet schools and how graduates could be supported as they underwent the transition from student to veterinary surgeon. Commenting on the day, Sarah Baillie, chair in veterinary education at the University of Bristol, said: ‘I found the contributions from the students and their invited speakers really informative and insightful.’ Subsequently, Peter Jones, the BVA past-president, wrote to the organisers to say: ‘I found your conference on Saturday among the most rewarding meetings I’ve been to since being a member of the officer team at BVA. I will certainly be following up on the commitments I made to encourage peer support at all the vet schools and to seriously explore how we might take this forward as a scheme for young new graduates working with our Young Vet Network.’ n More information about Liverpool vet school peer support and advice on how to set up a service is available from Tina Usherwood, e-mail: peersupportservice@ liverpool.ac.uk doi: 10.1136/vr.g3540 May 31, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 543
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on July 3, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
Encouraging peer support in veterinary schools Veterinary Record 2014 174: 543
doi: 10.1136/vr.g3540 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/22/543
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To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
News & Reports health and wellbeing
Encouraging peer support in veterinary schools Liverpool veterinary school has offered a peer support service to its students since 2009. Recently, the vet school hosted a conference aimed at promoting the peer support service and at encouraging other vet schools to set up similar systems for their own students. Katie Wright, a current peer supporter at Liverpool, describes the day. On April 26, the Liverpool vet school peer supporters hosted a conference entitled ‘Supporting vets and students at university and beyond’ at the Leahurst campus on the Wirral. The event, which was supported by the RCVS, aimed to promote the peer support service and encourage other vet schools to establish similar services. A booklet offering step-by-step guidance and advice on how to set up and run a peer support service in a veterinary school was also launched. Liverpool vet school’s peer support service is a confidential support system set up in 2009 by Tina Usherwood (VR, June 25, 2011, vol 168, pp 658-659). Currently, there are 40 peer supporters, who have all undergone 30 hours of professional training by the university’s counselling service, so they are better equipped to help students within the vet school. Peer supporters communicate with students via e-mail, talks, posters and an intranet page. They can be contacted through their university e-mail and the team meets regularly for reflective practice. Reflective practice provides supervision to ensure safe and supported practice. Peer support is seen as a huge asset to the vet school and the RCVS has commended the peer support system. Fifty delegates attended the recent conference, including heads of veterinary schools, senior tutors, welfare staff and representatives from counselling services at Liverpool, Glasgow, Surrey, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Bristol and Dublin universities and the Royal Veterinary College. BVA, RCVS and Veterinary Benevolent Fund (VBF) representatives were also present, as were representatives from the Association of Veterinary Students. During the day, Anne Ford, the peer support programme co-coordinator at the University of Oxford, discussed the importance of peer support. Tina Usherwood, the peer support programme coordinator at Liverpool university, gave a presentation on setting up a peer support service, as well as the importance of peer support in veterinary schools. A graduate vet peer supporter also spoke about the benefits of using her skills in practice. The Liverpool vet school peer supporters demonstrated
Speakers at the recent conference together with some of the Liverpool vet school peer supporters
how a reflective practice session worked, to give an insight into the service, which was highly valued by delegates. An informative talk about the Veterinary Surgeons’ Health Support Programme was given by Rory O’Connor, the programme’s national coordinator. Rosie Allister, of the VBF, presented up-to-date research on health and wellbeing in vet students and graduates. Miss Allister’s talk summarised the concern at levels of workplace stress and mental health problems in vets, which also affect vet students. She noted that the suicide risk among vets was three to four times that of the general population. Within the veterinary profession there were occupational stressors that had an important role in veterinary distress, such as long working hours, heavy workload, poor work-life balance and involvement in animal euthanasia. Miss Allister explained that research had suggested that subgroups of the profession might be at an increased risk, including female vets, younger vets and those working alone. The transition to practice was considered to be a challenging time for new graduates, she said, but factors affecting new graduates during transition and how these factors interacted were not well understood. She reported that the Vet Helpline received more calls from recent graduates than
from any other group. Her presentation provoked discussion among delegates at the conference about the future of supporting veterinary students in vet schools and how graduates could be supported as they underwent the transition from student to veterinary surgeon. Commenting on the day, Sarah Baillie, chair in veterinary education at the University of Bristol, said: ‘I found the contributions from the students and their invited speakers really informative and insightful.’ Subsequently, Peter Jones, the BVA past-president, wrote to the organisers to say: ‘I found your conference on Saturday among the most rewarding meetings I’ve been to since being a member of the officer team at BVA. I will certainly be following up on the commitments I made to encourage peer support at all the vet schools and to seriously explore how we might take this forward as a scheme for young new graduates working with our Young Vet Network.’ n More information about Liverpool vet school peer support and advice on how to set up a service is available from Tina Usherwood, e-mail: peersupportservice@ liverpool.ac.uk doi: 10.1136/vr.g3540 May 31, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 543
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on July 3, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
Encouraging peer support in veterinary schools Veterinary Record 2014 174: 543
doi: 10.1136/vr.g3540 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/22/543
These include:
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
