Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
With its recently released 2025-2028 Strategic Plan, the Australian Veterinary Association is on course to create a thriving veterinary profession. By Kathy Graham
Goals benefit from plans because plans provide direction, clarify steps, and keep the planner focused on achieving those goals. This applies as much to individuals as it does to organisations.
The Australian Veterinary Association and their 2025-2028 Strategic Plan are a case in point. The latter is a document launched in February by the AVA with the stated aim of building a “thriving veterinary profession”, including how this might be done.
Even before the 2022-2024 plan reached its end date, the board had begun thinking about its replacement. But first they wanted to hear from the profession. “Last August, we undertook a stakeholder survey,” says AVA chief executive Melissa King. “We specifically went to members and non-members because we really wanted to get a good understanding of the challenges facing the profession.”
Challenges such as the increase in the cost of living and its impact on the vet-client relationship, workforce shortages (especially in rural and regional areas), and poor veterinary mental health, to name a few, “allowed us to think about how we could align the issues of importance with our strategic plan for ‘25 to ‘28”.
The Board received over two and a half thousand responses to its survey with 75 per cent from AVA members, but it didn’t stop there in its quest for feedback. King explains that the AVA also talked to its divisions, groups, and staff to further glean what “our members and the profession find valuable about the AVA. Advocacy came through as an area the AVA certainly does well—71 per cent of survey respondents saw the AVA as a strong voice from an advocacy perspective, but also that there’s room for improvement”.
The AVA also got big ticks for its CPD offerings, mental health initiatives, and success at creating community through its many professional groups. If there was a criticism, it was that the AVA spreads itself too thin. “A key message that came through was the AVA attempts to address too many things, therefore that dilutes its effectiveness,” says King. “What we need to do is refine our vision and our focus.”
The hope is the AVA has done this in its latest strategic plan, stating a vision and purpose for the next four years—to build a vibrant future for veterinary professionals in which they can thrive—along with four key “goals” to best guide the association in this endeavour. These four goals are:
1. Champion the profession
This will include the AVA’s ongoing advocacy and policy work to advance issues of importance to the profession. “A tangible example of that is our federal election priorities,” says King. “We’ve developed an election priorities document with five priorities in it, and we’ve been to Canberra, meeting with both sides—the government and opposition—to talk through those priorities.”
Last August, we undertook a stakeholder survey. We specifically went to members and non-members because we really wanted to get a good understanding of the challenges facing the profession.
Melissa King, chief executive, AVA
The association will also continue working to raise public awareness of the profession, with a public awareness campaign scheduled within the year to “elevate the veterinary profession and remove some of the myths”.
2. Advance professional excellence.
The AVA will continue to both provide and partner with education providers to connect veterinarians with the best learning opportunities, says King. “The AVA doesn’t need to do everything. If it becomes the curator of amazing CPD, then it’s not just about the value of the CPD we provide, which our members and non-members have rated very highly. We can also look to other providers who are providing equally high-level material and education so that our members know where to go to find those things.”
Ongoing technical and scientific guidance and knowledge to support the profession is another imperative. King cites as a terrific example of this the many policy and position statements updated regularly by the AVA Policy Advisory Council, which span a broad range of topics critical to veterinarians, including animal health and welfare, biosecurity, public health, and regulation of the profession.
3. Empower connectivity
A key focus here, explains King, is to grow the AVA’s work in the mental health space, which already boasts veterinary wellness initiatives like THRIVE. “This offers mentorship for new graduates, the Cultivating Safe Teams pilot program we developed with funding from the Zoetis Foundation in the US, and mental health first aid training. We know from feedback that it is hard sometimes, so having those tools is a very important foundation for healthy, active, and engaged people in the profession.”
There will be continued emphasis on “strengthening professional networks created through our special interest groups and through our states and divisions,” adds King.
4. Deliver an exceptional experience
To enhance member engagement, the AVA has committed to modernising its operations, simplifying its processes, and perhaps most importantly, reviewing the current membership model looking at, for example, membership entitlements and pricing. King says, “Given the feedback from the profession about cost of living, that it’s too expensive, and there are barriers to them engaging with the association and therefore with each other, one thing we have done is put a price freeze on membership fees in 2025 while we transition to an all-inclusive membership model.”
King reports the response to the strategic plan from the veterinary community “has been positive, and I believe that’s because they have been part of shaping the strategic direction”. She points out that the last time stakeholders were surveyed was in 2019, so to remain relevant “the board absolutely agreed that it was time to hear from members and the profession. This has given us guidance around what the profession thinks is important and now it’s our role to act on that and elevate the veterinary profession as a whole.”
