CARE partners with community-based individuals & marginalized community organizations to identify needs & priorities, then develop & implement equitable, accessible, & community-led solutions for people & pets. We’ll discuss research behind this approach & suggestions for integrating community wisdom into evaluating your program. Attendees will understand how shifting community engagement to partnership, not servitude, advances health equity & promotes comprehensiv...

Let’s use real world examples of what it looks like when people can’t or don’t get needed medical care for their pets. We will examine cases and generate creative solutions to common barriers faced, then facilitate creative pathways of alternative approaches through REDI. These opportunities help increase awareness of barriers and motivate proactive steps to encourage inclusion of these communities. This results in increased preventive care, animal and human health, and pets staying home.

Providing excellent client services is essential to building trust and positive partnerships between your agency and the community. But what if we took it beyond the front desk, and implemented a culture of hospitality across the entire organization? Attendees will leave the session understandingDifference between client services and hospitality  

Workplace culture and environment are critical components to animal lifesaving. It can be the difference between team members who are engaged or burned out, pet owners feeling welcomed or judged, volunteers working with or against us – all of these dynamics either positively or negatively impact animal outcomes. While Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have become the mainstream ap...

This panel includes representatives from the MSPCA, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and Save the Unicorns. The panelists will describe how their organizations have rebooted their foster programs to engage more foster volunteers by specific foster need, break down barriers to fostering, increase training, and gain support for some animals that have been hard to find foster options for. 

Pet owners are working harder than ever to keep their pets as lifelong companions, yet few social services agencies have programs that support the bond between humans and animals. BestyBnB seeks to change that by partnering with social services agencies and animal welfare agencies to prevent unnecessary owner surrenders. In this session, you will learn steps toward partnering with social services agencies to create a holistic network o...

The national dog crisis is impacting every community in our nation, and although it is overwhelming, a clear solution has emerged to help us combat this crisis - increasing adoptions.  Learn how the MSPCA has pivoted since early 2023 to reimagine adoption programming for dogs to increase adoptions. The solution may surprise you as we have recycled the playbook from 2012 to supercharge adoption programming. 

The merge between MSPCA and NEAS requires a new level of consistency among our four-shelter system to support fluid internal transfer of and communication surrounding our dog population. To meet our unique needs, we developed an evaluation process comprised of objective observations recorded during routine daily care and at natural checkpoints in an animal’s pathway. We aim to equip staff and volunteers with the skills to participate i...