Laura Zmud: breaking new ground in veterinary social work

In honour of March being Social Work Month, we wanted to share the amazing and diverse placement experiences of some of our Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) and Master of Social Work (MSW) students, in order to highlight the fact that social work is an incredibly wide-ranging field that extends into all areas of the community.

Meet Laura, an MSW student currently completing her placement at a veterinary clinic in Edmonton.

Here's what she had to say about her experience at her placement, studying at Renison's School of Social Work, and the broader field of social work.

Throughout my life I have always centered my connection with animals.  

This started by growing up in a family with many animals throughout the years including dogs, cats, horses, guinea pigs, fish, and one miniature pot-bellied pig! Beyond animals that were part of our family, it also included a connection with the veterinary medical field predominantly through my mom who is a Registered Veterinary Technologist (RVT). This allowed me early in my life to gain practical knowledge and experience working in the animal welfare field and veterinary profession, including supporting animals and their families through crisis and end of life. 

It was through my mom and my own work in the veterinary field that I was first introduced to the field of social work! Initially starting university for engineering, I quickly realized I wanted to make a different impact with my career. At the time, Erin Wasson was launching the first Veterinary Social Work program in Canada at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon. We had one coffee together, and although I didn’t fully grasp the depth of social work, I knew social work in the veterinary field was what I wanted to do.  

I quickly transferred programs to complete my BSW at the University of Regina in 2020. What a year to graduate and get my first social work job at a human hospital. Since that time, my work and volunteer roles have all interwoven components of human and animal health together. 

Before I had even completed my BSW, I knew I wanted my MSW given the unique skillset related to veterinary social work. Selecting from programs across Canada, Waterloo and Renison’s MSW program was my top pick due to the focus on healthcare. While this of course focuses on human healthcare, connection to content can easily be viewed through a lens connecting human health and healthcare systems to animal and community health as well.

I can say my placement is not a standard or conventional placement by any means.  

I am working with a specialty and emergency care veterinary clinic in Edmonton to develop a social work program. The veterinary clinic does not currently have an in-house social worker, and I’m thankful to have a team of two ladies leading me through my placement. One is the General Manager of the veterinary clinic, and the other is an MSW in private practice!  

Since my MSW supervisor is off-site, my hours are spent split between the vet clinic, time with my MSW supervisor, and self-led learning time at home.  

I’m about half done my practicum hours now, and by the end of the placement we have a goal of having a veterinary social work program proposal completed. This proposal will bring together all learnings throughout my placement and propose how a social work program can be developed for this specific clinic.  

This includes looking at social work theory to ground the program in, ethical standards and considerations, defining services that could be offered and how, policies and documents required, budgets, and much more.  

Some of my time has been learning about the individuals that make up the vet clinic team, and understanding their specific needs or wants out of a proposed program. The other main portion of my time has been learning about private practice counselling – prior to this placement, I was most comfortable working in acute crisis settings (emergency departments for humans or animals is where my comfort zone is). With time and support from my MSW supervisor, I have been learning a lot around direct counselling and am slowly finding a new comfort in this knowledge and setting.  

My placement has also provided me the ability to assess larger systems in relation to veterinary medicine and a possible veterinary social work program looking beyond the walls of this one vet clinic. This includes asking why veterinary medical professionals are so unwell, with veterinarians having one of the highest suicide rates by profession, and what can be done to shift this. This also includes looking at systemic barriers of who can access veterinary care and unique challenges faced by marginalized populations that are also pet owners.  

I also have spent time connecting with individual team members, and answering the question of 'what the heck does social work have to do with veterinary medicine?' For me it makes so much sense, but to many people from both the veterinary side and the social work side this is a whole new concept to wrap their head around. Sharing the practical role a social worker could have as part of a patients care team has been important to building relationships and overall support for a program in the clinic. How can I support the clinic so others can focus on providing the best medical care to the patient?  

The team at the vet clinic have been not only welcoming, but eager to learn about social work and welcome me into their team which I am so grateful for. I have been in settings where social workers have to 'prove' their place and value in an interdisciplinary team, and my placement has been refreshingly the opposite experience!  

One piece I wanted to ensure I included in my placement was being able to offer new knowledge and information to the vet clinic team. So far this has included information around women, veterinary medicine, and Alberta as part of recognizing International Women’s Day, analyzing the 94 Calls to Action through the lens of the vet clinic, among others. This ties together macro level systems with health and wellbeing of the clinic team and community care. 

Every day in this placement is new and my brain is constantly critically assessing and thinking about how to incorporate my learnings into program development.

This placement has allowed me the time and space to really use the student role to my advantage, to connect with a large network of other social workers, and soak in knowledge they share with me. It has allowed me the time to not rush into implementing a program right away but rather take the hours to understand and critically consider aspects of a potential program.  

More than anything, this placement is something that I’ve been waiting for since before I was accepted into my BSW program. Now that it has finally arrived, I could not be more thankful for the people involved who are supporting my placement and making this long-standing goal a reality.

By far the most surprising thing has been learning and exploring more about private counselling. Prior to my placement, I had very little desire to learn more about this area, but my MSW supervisor has shared so much of her knowledge and passion to understand more with me that I have now found myself exploring this area way more than anticipated. This looks like exploring different therapeutic modalities in contrast to relevance to veterinary social work setting, understanding the huge value of supervision, and ethical and legal considerations. 

Overall this has been a really valuable addition to my knowledge and learning, but for sure unexpected!

The biggest misconception I have experienced is that the whole definition of a social worker is someone who works in child protection and takes children from their families – which we know to be so far from the truth.  

The second misconception is that social work must focus on humans. This is a misconception I think is still actively and deeply imbedded in both the perception from the public and from within the profession as well.  

My truth is that social work is a profession in constant flux filled with compassionate individuals who push barriers to better our community. My truth is also that the profession must look outside of only humans to truly align with the values of the social work profession.

If you align with social work values but don’t see a role for you in our profession, join us knowing you’re in the right place! You will be given the knowledge and tools to create a space and place for yourself within our profession.  

I would also urge you to look outside of traditional roles. How are you considering the environment in your work? How are you considering the non-human animals in your work? Whether you think about them or not, these two areas impact every aspect of our work in this profession.

Want to learn more about social work? Check out Renison's School of Social Work, and stay tuned for more student features coming soon!