We keep circling the same gap in these threads, the field underinvests in its own people, and then wonders why management and retention are hard. So here is the part worth saying out loud: the education for animal welfare management exists, and a lot of it is free. Here is the map as I understand it, management-focused.
The credential. CAWA, the Certified Animal Welfare Administrator, through The Association for Animal Welfare Advancement (theaawa.org). It is the executive credential for our field, nonprofit and municipal. A proctored online exam covering leadership, HR, finance, fundraising, marketing, administration, and animal care. You do not need a degree to sit for it, and about 300 people have earned it. If you want one thing that signals management standing, this is it.
Free certifications and course libraries. The UC Davis Koret Shelter Care Specialist and Master Shelter Care Specialist certifications run through the Shelter Learniverse and are currently free thanks to Maddie's Fund, with CE units that count toward NACA and CAWA. Maddie's University (university.maddiesfund.org) is a deep library of free courses for leadership, staff, fosters, and volunteers. ASPCApro adds free training plus the ASPCA-Cornell-Maddie's shelter medicine courses.
University programs. The University of Florida offers a fully online Maddie's Graduate Certificate in Shelter Medicine and an online master's, built for shelter leaders and managers, not just veterinarians. University of Wisconsin-Madison runs shelter medicine coursework too.
Field services and conferences. NACA covers animal control and field services management. Animal Care Expo, now under Humane World for Animals, is the national conference for the leadership tracks.
And for the workforce side a few of you have raised, the licensed-technician shortage, accredited online vet tech programs are the pipeline, the path that did not exist when some of us came up.
Here is the honest part. The education is not the bottleneck. Most of it is free and online. The bottleneck is time, and an organization culture that treats staff development as optional instead of as the thing that keeps good people. If your org funds the back end and never the people, no course catalog fixes that.
What have the rest of you actually used and found worth the hours? I would like to build a better list than the one I just gave.
#Conferences,WorkshopsandWebcasts#EducationandTraining#OrganizationalManagement#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)------------------------------
Join The Shift To Prevention.
BJ Adkins
Founder/Director
Animal-Angels Foundation
Pinson, AL
calendy.com/animal-angels
bjadkins@animal-angels.organimal-angelsfoundation.org
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