Make Headway works with the following
organisations to advance the mental
health and well-being of their team.
About Us
Cathy Warburton & ‘Jelly’
Veterinary Well-Being Consultant and Coach
Dr Cathy Warburton
BSc, BVMS, MVS, TAA,
Dip Pos Psych and Well-being
Cathy graduated from Murdoch University in 1989 as a veterinarian. She worked as a clinician, trainer and manager in private, university and corporate practices for 25 years, mostly in the pressure cooker environment of Emergency and Critical Care.
Cathy’s experiences and those of the people around her, clearly demonstrated the way that veterinary work can be both rewarding and enjoyable, AND stressful and emotionally exhausting. There were times in her career where the rewards predominated and others where burnout prevailed.
In 2014, Cathy realigned to focus on the concept of well-being in the veterinary industry. She now sees her role as creating the space and safety to have conversations that explore the big questions of our lives as humans working in the veterinary industry. Questions such as; What makes for a great day and how do we have more of them? And what is the pattern behind difficult times and how do we better manage them? These conversations can happen at the level of the group, individual or workplace.
Cathy brings to the conversations, her curiosity and compassion. She combines this with a commitment to walking alongside and encouraging each individual to uncover their strengths, their values and their interests. She sees this self-awareness and acceptance as the prerequisite to crafting a career and life that brings satisfaction and well-being.
The experiences and training that inform Cathy’s work are her long involvement with the industry and a humanistic outlook intermingled with training in positive psychology, coaching, group work, spiritual care and meaning-centred therapy. Cathy is a Mental Health First Aider. She is based in Melbourne, Australia.
Cheryl Fry & ‘Milo’
Certified Professional Well-being Coach
Dr Cheryl Fry
BVSc (Hons), MVS, CPC, ELI-MP
After graduating from Veterinary Science at Melbourne University in 1992, Cheryl began her career as a veterinarian at a small animal clinic in Adelaide. From there, as her skills and experience grew, compounded by her completion of a Masters in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery (Murdoch University) she shifted to a larger clinic where she first started to experience the common frustrations of being a veterinary surgeon.
Whilst her love for her clinic and work did not diminish, she realised that the stress and anxiety, alongside her own high standards of skill and care started to affect her own mental health. She then made the decision to combine life coaching with veterinary care, and has not looked back since.
Her love of animals and of clients returned rapidly and she found a new thrill in being able to use her intuition, compassion and empathy to help other vets make a difference!
Her role as your Personal Certified Life Coach is to find out what isn’t working in your life at the moment, what you want to be different in your future, and how to get from where you are today to where you want to be. She will partner with you in your own personal journey to a happier and more fulfilled life.
Cheryl is an independent coach based in Sydney, Australia.
Who We Are
At Make Headway, we are veterinary professionals empowering veterinary professionals towards enhanced performance and well-being.
At Make Headway, we believe that the acquisition of clinical skills and knowledge is just the first step on the pathway to being an excellent vet, vet nurse, receptionist or manager.
At Make Headway, we believe in the art of veterinary medicine. We provide education and coaching around the supporting structures that allow veterinary professionals to effectively and sustainably utilize their clinical skills and knowledge – their mindset, emotional intelligence, self-care skills, resilience and interpersonal communication.
At Make Headway, we work compassionately, ethically and collaboratively, each bringing our own individual and complementary experiences and skills.
At Make Headway, we love science and research. We agree with the dual continua model of mental health and mental illness (Keyes 2014) which you can see on the right. We work with you to promote the factors known to enhance mental health and prevent those known to damage it.
We want you to lead a more fulfilling life. And we want to help you to do so.
Make Headway – advancing veterinary mental health and well-being
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