Q&A: Not One More Vet is on a CLEAR mission

Gigi Tsontos, LCSW, MPA, PCC, is the chief executive director of Not One More Vet (NOMV). A licensed clinical social worker coach, she runs mental health and well-being nonprofit program and started working for NOMV in January 2024. “I've worked with veterinarians in other ways, with my own animals for my entire life. And so just being able to support NOMV's mission to transform the lives of veterinary industry members so that they not only survive but thrive, is key,” she said in a dvm360 interview.

Tsontos also discussed NOMV’s origins and its ongoing purpose to prevent suicides in the veterinary industry as well as the available resources it provides and the CLEAR Blueprint certification program for professional teams and practices.

The following questions and answers were part of the interview’s discussion:

dvm360: What the mission of the organization, and how does it benefit the veterinary industry?

Gigi Tsontos, LCSW, MPA, PCC: So NOMV's mission is literally to ensure veterinary industry members’ well-being. We really focus [on] education, awareness and outreach, and resources. Our education components are anything from awareness campaigns, outreach materials that are available to help someone learn about how they can develop skills. I like to say that our education department team and volunteers, they help synthesize tough information so that you can use it in the moment. So we have mental health tip cards. We do a lot of speaking engagements, a lot of webinars, a lot of just providing information and resources that help to support the community in any way that we can, and then we have support, which are peer support.

NOMV started in 2014 after the unfortunate death by suicide of Dr Sophia Yin [DVM]…In 2017, NOMV became a 501(c)3 [nonprofit] here in the US, and from there, the [it] expanded to [include] Lifeboat, which is an asynchronous, anonymous, online peer support program where we train peers to help their support each other, and we have mental health professionals supporting that team as well. And last year, after I came on, we were super excited to bring on veterinary mental health support, which is psychoeducation and process groups for veterinary industry members. Individual sessions are also available to veterinarians, and those are—we call them peer support because they are not therapy—facilitated by professionals, but really the group and the people are doing all of the work.

Our sources are extraordinarily exciting, and one of the places we started was support grants. So we have a program that does individual grants and grants to organizations. Our support grants provide up to $500 to individuals who are having insecurity and housing, transportation, food, mental health or medical health needs…And then emergency grants or organizational grants, those are really for when, say, a clinic is involved in a natural disaster, or something has happened in which they're unable to sustain for some reason. We're trying to help them keep their doors open. An example would be the Los Angeles fires, where we supported many community members just to make sure they could restock their medications or rebuild a part of the clinic. We've helped with generators; we've helped with just a variety of things. And so those grants are up to $7,500 for a clinic to maintain that.

And then we do a lot of just awareness and the CLEAR Blueprint [program}, a practice certification program where we are really focusing on the well-being of the team. How is the mental health culture? How are we providing a culture of mentally stable, healthy activities for our team members in our clinics?

dvm360: Speaking of the CLEAR Blueprint program, what sort of criteria needs to be met to obtain that certification?

Tsontos: So the initial assessment is a series of questions…We provide an assessment tool in which the clinic team members, 80% of them, participate. So we want everyone from the front desk, the owner, the veterinarians, the technicians, the kennel team, whomever is in that agency. We want them to participate and provide [responses]. From that assessment tool, we have 10 arenas that we're looking at. So how do people feel about leadership, communication in the organization; how we connect with our clients, finances, etc., How we connect with each other are important, even work life balance. Are we over extending ourselves? All those kinds of things.

Then, we provide an overview to them, to the clinic, of what's happening. Not specific ‘Gigi said this,’ but here's what we're seeing as your range, and here are areas where we think you can improve. If you get through it the first time, then you're certified. Yay.

But there's a lot of teams that will find an area in which they need to engage in something, and so we then [provide] training, tools, coaching, etc., that help them through that. And they keep going [to obtain certification].

If, in fact, they have a lower score on one on one area, then we really focus with them on that area and getting resources to help them change something. A very simple example is one clinic said, ‘we think we're going to do fabulous. And one of the arenas that they did lower than fabulous was around team members at a certain level in the organization living paycheck to paycheck and feeling really stressed about finances. And so they were like, ‘Okay, what can we do?’ And they took a step back, looked at their programming, looked at how they set things up, and were able to then come back to the table with a plan to increase that pay scale and adjust things. And so that showed their commitment. It showed that they were willing to look outside the box, and it also gave them the ability to support their team in a way that they didn't realize….Other examples are leadership training that can be in play, or thinking about ways to schedule differently, things like that. But really, our whole goal is on the well-being, mental health.

[Veterinary teams are] certified for 5 years, and we continuously provide updated resources and materials to all of our certified teams. We are available to them if as situations occur as well.

dvm360: From your perspective, how important is it to for an organization to have a certification like this?

Tsontos: I think it's extremely important. It shows your team members that you're committed to this. We have Fear Free in clinics, and we show our commitment to making sure our animals are taken care of in the best way that they can. CLEAR is much like that. We're showing that we're committed to our team members, not only to the team members that are currently there, but those that might be coming in the door. It's a way to bring people in. ‘Hey, I know that this company is committed to this part of the job.’ And the other part of it is that we're retaining our team members, because we're showing this pattern. And me, as a client to a clinic, a zoo, whatever it might be, if I saw that, I would be much more inclined to utilize that clinic or just know that that that veterinary space was committed to this. So I think it's highly important, especially in this day and age. We've seen since 2014 an uptick in discussing mental health, but we need strategy to help people make sure it's happening.

dvm360: What else would you like veterinary professionals to know about the CLEAR Blueprint program?

Tsontos: It's very easy to get in touch with CLEAR. You can look on our website: NOMV.org [email protected] is a great way to email them. I highly recommend [the program]. The teams that I've talked to, they just they have a sense of belonging that I haven't seen in some of the other teams. And it's available to any kind of veterinary industry. So, for example, if you're a shelter, as long as there are veterinary team members working with you, we're available.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, call the Suicide Prevention Hotline for the US and Canada by dialing 988.