Laura Woodward has been a vet for over 20 years. She has worked as a surgeon in universities and private practices in the UK and Australia.
She has also worked in many charities and established VSPCA in Visakhapatnam in India to neuter and vaccinate stray dogs.
Laura is an ACPNL and ISPC affiliated Counsellor specialising in child and adolescent counselling, and adult stress management, anxiety and depression.
Laura is a mindfulness practitioner and runs regular mindful meditation sessions for veterinary surgeons, nurses and managers.
She has presented at London Vet Show, BVOA, ESVOT conferences, VETFestival and more.
She writes a monthly mental health article for Veterinary Practice Magazine.
This is a new and unique service tailored to the needs of our professions. While there are many life coaches available, this is the only UK based counselling service specifically for vets and vet nurses by vets and vet nurses.
All veterinary practices are now obliged to have mental wellbeing and counselling available to their employees.
Any workshops, seminars and one-to-one sessions with us are claimable as CPD and are tax-free for the employer.
Laura has been the surgeon at Linnaeus Village Vet Hampstead for over 10 years.
Laura is a vet, an accredited counsellor, a mindfulness practitioner and a positive psychologist. She’s also a mother. She is a member of the Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists in London with a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling.
She is also affiliated with the ISPC, International Society of Psychotherapy and Counselling.
“Mindfulness for vets” and “Cognitive behavioural therapy”. Trendy buzz words? or the tools you and your team need?
For you , as an individual, we will show you how to be the employer, vet or nurse who inspires others. You will be the staff member who is raising the bar and encouraging others to reach for it.
You will learn how to communicate effectively and you will find others responding to you in the same way.
Have you ever wondered how, after saying the same thing numerous times, nothing changes? By changing how you communicate, people will listen, and you will need to say something only once to effect change.
“The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through. ” Sydney J. Harris
You will become confident, even when there is a level of worry. You will keep everyone pressing ahead and you will feel calmer.
You will triage your thoughts through mindfulness so that sleepless nights are a thing of the past.
Raising staff morale, dealing with stress, improving self esteem and increasing productivity.
One-to-one counselling.
Cognitive therapy is based on the idea that when you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel and behave. In other words, if we can learn to think about other people in a more positive and realistic way, it will be far easier to resolve conflicts and develop rewarding personal and professional relationships.
Small group workshops.
In groups of 4 to 8, each workshop is short and deals with one topic e.g. stress management or communication issues, or charisma development or grievances. Each session generates a task e.g. a particular change in attitude, for all present to be done until the following session.
Larger cpd events.
Usually an hour long, many topics can be discussed at these events. e.g. how to raise staff morale, how colleagues can interact in a positive way, how to turn stress into a buzz, how to welcome the tricky client.
“In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher” – 14th Dalai Lama
email Laura at info@laurawoodward.co.uk or phone me on 07811 994656 to arrange a meeting where we can discuss the benefits I can bring to your team.
Every team can benefit from open discussion. Especially if it is short and to the point.
Every practice can benefit from improving the self esteem and charisma of its vets and nurses.
Every employer can be at the cutting edge of hot topics in the veterinary world such as “mindfulness”. Having mental wellbeing and counselling available for potential employees will set your practice apart from the rest.
email Laura in total confidence at info@laurawoodward.co.uk in the first instance. For one to one counselling, I will never discuss the fact that I have met you to anybody. We will organise to meet for a free of charge introductory session where we can decide if counselling is likely to be of benefit to you. Some clients come to my counselling rooms in Northwest London. Others choose to meet elsewhere. Generally we have six hour-long sessions over six weeks. However, some people choose to have three two-hour sessions.
Everyone
can benefit from counselling. Just as we exercise to keep the body fit and we clean where we live, the benefits from guided, emotional housekeeping are enormous.
How often do we take the time to openly offload our thoughts onto someone who will treat everything we say with absolute confidentiality? That person is qualified to help us get the most benefit in the least amount of time. And, they treat us with total positive regard.
Whether you thoroughly enjoying your job or not, counselling will make you a stronger, more dynamic colleague: the type of vet you want to be, the type of vet the clients want to see and the vet the employer will notice above the rest.
A small group of 4 to 8 colleagues. This is a confidential meeting. We do not discuss what has been said in these meetings outside of the room.
Workshops are easy to fit into the working week as they are short and to the point. We may discuss a grievance between colleagues and discuss it openly. We may decide that this is the week to learn how to turn a difficult client into a welcome client who can help us to exercise our tolerance and patience (this is a particularly popular workshop).
We may talk about charisma, and how to project ourselves in a confident way to others.
At the end of each workshop, I set a behavioural task for each of the team to work on until it becomes a natural attribute of theirs.
“ I contacted Laura through her website when I was at breaking point. I had multiple issues which were exacerbated by the pandemic and I wasn’t coping. I had had CBT which didn’t help me. We had 8 sessions which were intense and quite grueling. Laura showed me how to deal with stress and anxiety differently. I never thought counseling and mindfulness were for me. But now I can honestly say that I have never been calmer or happier.”
Thank you.
– Anonymous
” I was feeling “detached” and exhausted when I found Laura, which may have in part been why I found mindfulness would be too little to play any role in any uplifting. But I trusted her and put her advice into practice. And I am so glad I did. Her advice and coping mechanisms made me fall in love with my job all over again and gave me the confidence to find a better work-life balance.”
– Anonymous
“I was pushed towards Laura by a good work friend who realised that I needed some help to deal with the emotional consequences of working through the pandemic. I doubted that counselling would benefit me and was particularly sceptical that meditation could do anything to improve how I felt. I was proved completely wrong though – meditating every day has enabled me to change from an overwhelmed, miserable vet to a proud, happy person who is looking forward to many more years in the profession. It is hard to put into words just how much I gained from my sessions with Laura, and I am very grateful for all of her support and advice”.
– Anonymous
“Laura came to our fairly large practice a few months ago to provide a day of mental wellbeing.
I was stunned by how easily she managed to teach such a large group to reflect, to meditate and to be calm.
It was very personal. We cried, we laughed and we left on a complete high.
That high has continued throughout the practice and we now work in a new, compassionate and cohesive way. Her kindness and honesty is a breath of fresh air.”
– Anonymous
Assertiveness training
This workshop enables participants to develop their ability to act assertively, even in the most difficult situations, such as feeling unpopular and not wishing to offend others.
Building Effective Relationships
Building effective relationships is a key part of success in the Veterinary world.This highly practical workshop will provide key skills and knowledge to help you build constructive and effective relationships with colleagues, and pet owners.
Building Multi-Professional Teams
Increasingly vets and veterinary nurses work as part of multiprofessional teams. Although these teams are focused on common goals, making them work successfully can be very difficult. This workshop looks at why these problems arise and how to build a good multi-professional team.
Communication Skills
A key role for vets and nurses is communicating effectively with the clients, with each other and with the “front of house team”. By getting our message across and by understanding the views and needs of others we can reduce the likelihood of conflict and disagreement. This highly practical workshop looks at the things that make for effective communication and introduces key communication skills that can be used whether communicating with individuals or groups.
Dealing with Conflict
Conflict at work in many practices is becoming more common and is a major cause of performance problems. Understanding why conflicts arise and resolving them quickly and effectively is critical if we and our teams are not to suffer burnout and stress.
Decision Making
Making decisions can be difficult in many cases.. We are faced with large amounts of data, the needs of different interest groups and pressure to always get it right.
This workshop looks at how to identify the key factors that influence our decision, how to gather and analyse relevant evidence and how to use a decision making model to reach the right answer.
Emotional Intelligence
Research shows that emotional intelligence is a key ability in building and maintaining successful relationships at work. This is a core skill in leading teams, coping with change and managing and resolving conflicts. This highly practical workshop explores the meaning of emotional intelligence, the difference that it makes in practice and how to develop it and how to use it successfully at work and elsewhere.
Implementing Change
The pressure of constant change is one that faces everyone in small animal practice. Clinicians are faced with the challenge of providing the highest quality of patient care while making sense of ever changing staff and targets. This workshop is about understanding and coping with change and the effect it has on us and those around us.
Negotiation and Influencing Skills
The ability to negotiate and influence on a day-to-day level is an essential skill whether it be agreeing priorities, establishing protocols or other key deliverables. This workshop focuses on cooperative negotiation working towards outcomes that meet the needs of all parties and support long-term relationships. It is practically focused with specifically designed case studies to support and maximise learning.
Performance Management
Meeting performance targets is a source of constant challenge when dealing with clients and emotional scenarios. Making sure that the teams we lead are focused on the right things is a critical task. This workshop offers some practical techniques to make sure that high standards of performance are maintained.
Time Management
Getting the most from our time is a challenge for all of us. The demands placed on vets and nurses increases constantly and it becomes increasingly difficult to find time for the things that really matter to us.
Understanding and Managing Stress
Working within the veterinary industry with its constant pressures, the potential for stress is enormous. This workshop looks at the causes of stress, how in our role as managers we can minimise them and how to develop effective personal strategies for reducing stress.
Mindfulness techniques are taught and practised at this, our most popular workshop.
Mindfulness training
Learning to be mindful rather than running on auto pilot can liberate us from the hamster wheel of daily life, rushing and juggling work with life.
Key skills in meditation practice are taught and practised in these workshops. Delegates leave the course equipped with the ability to meditate unguided at home, thus reducing stress, increasing emotional intelligence and enhancing their overall mental wellbeing.