Diversity, prejudice and discrimination in our society has been hitting the headlines recently. We know that the veterinary profession in the UK is lacking in diversity, and has significant issues with discrimination. The issues have never been clearer or more actively in the public eye, but robust solutions are still lacking.
With this in mind, we're excited to announce that on the 14-15th of August, we'll be participating in the UK's first Veterinary Diversity Conference, organised by our friends at BVEDS and kindly hosted by the University of Surrey. Titled "Courageous Conversations", it'll be a chance for us to take a frank look at the lack of diversity in the vet profession in the UK. We'll be examining the current barriers to inclusivity and trying to identify solutions to make the profession accessible to all.
As with all conferences this year, it'll be online (via Zoom) and it's totally free. We're also hoping that it will count towards your CPD requirements for the year (if you're a vet or RVN) so stay tuned!
We'll also have some time during this for the spoonie community to come together and discuss our next steps and goals for the year. We had a fantastic session at London Vet Show last year, and we're hoping that we can use this time to build on it further.
We'd be especially keen to hear from any spoonie students, as we're hoping there will be a designated student-only slot discussing issues at the university level.
We'd love as many people as possible to get involved, both with this and with the wider conference. You can register for the conference here; it's selling out fast, so if you don't manage to get a ticket then drop us an email at vetspoonies@gmail.com as we do have some tickets reserved for the community. If you'd like to be part of our community session then email (same address) or PM one of the admins on the facebook group. And lastly, if you're a student, do sign up for the student community workshops!