Doors Wide Open: Pawsitive Peer Support: Helping Each Other Without the Heavy Load - On Demand
Recorded On: 11/18/2025
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Doors Wide Open is a series of short discussions about practical solutions that organizations are using to address barriers to accessing pet care and resources in their communities.
Join us for a 30-minute panel discussion introducing the Social Work Guidelines in Animal Welfare Settings, a groundbreaking new resource created by and for social workers working in animal welfare organizations across North America.
Animal welfare work is rewarding - and often emotionally intense! In this 30-minute webcast, we’ll explore how to support each other in ways that strengthen connection without adding emotional strain. You’ll learn practical tools for peer debriefs that allow space for processing difficult experiences without “trauma dumping”, including strategies to listen with care, respond with empathy, and keep both the speaker and the listener/supporter resilient! Valuable resources are shared that you can immediately use.
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Explain the difference between healthy peer support and trauma dumping.
- Use low-impact debrief techniques to process challenging situations with colleagues.
- Apply active listening skills that reduce emotional overload for both parties.
- Understand how to compassionately set boundaries around support provision.
Host:
Aimee St.Arnaud, Founder of Open Door Veterinary Collective
Presenter: Janet Hoy-Gerlach, PhD, LCSW, LISW-S, Director of Veterinary Social Work, Open Door Veterinary Collective
Earn continuing education credit from The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement towards .5 CAWA CEs. This webinar has also been pre-approved for .5 continuing education credits by the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA).
Visit Maddie's Pet Forum to comment, follow a discussion or ask questions: https://maddies.fund/OpenDoorForum12162025
keywords Doors Wide Open, Open Door Veterinary Collective, access to animal care
Aimee St.Arnaud
Owner, Open Door One Health Partnerships
Aimee St.Arnaud's focus is on increasing access to spay/neuter and veterinary care across the nation. Previously she was the Director of National Veterinary Outreach Programs for Best Friends Animal Society and Director of Programs at ASPCA Spay/Neuter Alliance where she oversaw spay/neuter training programs of 1,000 professionals a year. She is the founder of Humane Ohio, a spay/neuter clinic performing roughly 18,000 spay/neuters a year and Partner in two full-service access to care veterinary clinics in OH and NC.
Janet Hoy-Gerlach, PhD, LISW-S
Associate Professor, University of Toledo School of Social Justice
Dr. Janet Hoy-Gerlach has extensive experience as a social work practitioner in the public mental health service system and is an avid advocate for the inclusion of human-animal interaction considerations within social work practice. Her current research is focused on: benefits of the human-animal bond; facilitators of mental health recovery among individuals living with mental illness; and the use of qualitative research to inform intervention research. She is on the board of the Toledo Area Humane Society (TAHS), where she developed and supervises MSW internship placements that facilitate benefits of human-animal interaction. She helped develop the TAHS Hope and Recovery Pet Program (HARP), which places shelter animals as Emotional Support Animals (ESAs); this is one of the only such programs in the United States. Dr. Hoy provides expert witness testimony for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Department on benefits of human-animal interaction.
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