Wild about Self-Care

An online workshop for everyone in animal wellbeing and conservation related professions

🐾 Why We Struggle with Self-Care

Many of us in animal wellbeing and conservation:

Put animals and colleagues before ourselves
Work long hours with little time to recharge
Carry emotional weight from tough decisions or loss
Tell ourselves “I’ll rest later”… but later rarely comes

🌿 Wild About Self-Care is here to change that.

In this workshop, you’ll learn simple, sustainable practices that fit into real life — so you can care for yourself with the same dedication you give to others.

🌿 Why Self-Care Matters

Imagine this:

You’ve just finished a long day — feeding, treating, teaching, managing, or leading. You’re exhausted, but there’s still a report to write, emails to answer, maybe a sick animal on your mind. You tell yourself, “I’ll rest later. They need me now.”

Sound familiar?

This is the reality for so many people in animal wellbeing and conservation. The work is deeply meaningful — but it’s also demanding. The hours are long. The challenges keep coming. And often, our own needs are the first to be sacrificed.

The truth is, we can’t pour from an empty cup. When we ignore self-care, burnout creeps in. Stress builds. Even the work we love can start to feel overwhelming.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Self-care isn’t about adding more to your already full plate. It’s about simple, sustainable practices that restore your energy and reconnect you to your purpose. It’s about permitting yourself to pause — so you can keep showing up, not just for your work, but for your whole life.

That’s why we created Wild About Self-Care: to give you tools, practices, and a supportive space to put yourself back on your care list.

Here’s a quick hello from me — and why I created Wild About Self-Care for people like you.

And yet, when we neglect our own wellbeing, it doesn’t just affect us — it affects the animals, the people we work with, and the mission we care so deeply about.

The truth is:

We often put animals, colleagues, and tasks before our own needs.

We tell ourselves we’ll “rest later” — but later rarely comes.

We underestimate how much small, consistent self-care practices can recharge us.

Self-care isn’t selfish — it’s essential. By building sustainable habits and creating your personal self-care bundle, you’ll have tools you can turn to in moments of stress, transition, or fatigue.

Taking care of yourself means you can keep showing up — not just for your work, but for your whole life.

You’ll leave with

Practical self-care strategies you can use daily
Your own personal self-care bundle
Resources you can return to anytime you need support
Connection with peers across roles and regions
A certificate of attendance

Join the workshop

Sabrina Brando Iceland AnimalConcepts group photo

"The course 'Take Care to Give Care' is so needed and relevant in our industry. Sabrina manages to communicate about difficult topics that most of us have experienced with such grace and great care. I would recommend her course as an absolute must for everyone working with animals and humans."

Mally

Group photo Paris AnimalConcepts Brando human wellbeing seminar

"Sabrina Brando's talk was just what I needed when I needed it. As dog trainers, I think we underestimate how important self care is if we want to keep doing our work properly and with balance. I recommend her course for anyone who is involved with animal and/or human care and wants to have a long and fulfilling career doing so."

Camille

Purpose and values

We are committed to helping all people care for animals and for themselves

One Care

We are committed to animal and human wellbeing, for individuals and organisations

Diversity, Inclusion, & Equity

We are dedicated to creating a more diverse, equal, and inclusive world for all

Sabrina Brando

Sabrina is currently a PhD candidate in the Psychology Department at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her research focusses on individual, team, leadership, and organisational aspects of human wellbeing in zoos and aquariums. This covers job satisfaction, self-efficacy, satisfaction with life, team collaboration and communication, occupational stressors and opportunities, and other aspects affecting individual and organisational wellbeing.

Sabrina is a Certified Compassion Fatigue Professional and feels compassion awareness is key in all professions that work in the field of animal wellbeing and conservation. This includes animal care professionals, veterinarians, curators, and other departments such as people working as educators, communicators, staff in the Human Value Department (formerly known as HR), directors, managers, and the CEO. We are all humans. We all need support, training, and care. At AnimalConcepts we talk about Take Care to Give Care. When we care for ourselves, we can better care for each other, including people, animals, community, and the planet we share.

As a psychologist, Sabrina has extensive training in human wellbeing, from grief and loss to working in stressful and trauma-sensitive environments. She has trained in the neuroscience of behaviour change, embodied presence, trauma-sensitive mindfulness, and developing a culture of physical and psychological safety, bravery, and care in organisations through risk and resilience assessments.

"One of Sabrina's best qualities as a speaker/teacher, is the way she helps you understand. It's in such a humane way, she really cares about everyone and you can feel it. The atmosphere is relaxed and uplifiting. You'll find both small and bigger changes in thinking and problem solving, that helps you either as a pro and/or as a pet owner. Well, in general. I just loved Sabrina's lectures! She made a huge impact on my thinking..." ~ Sissa

2023 Book chapter

Caring for elderly wild animals: The human experience

Get the book on Optimal Wellbeing of Ageing Wild Animals in Human Care

Get the book

2023 AZA Culture of Care

Download the poster presented at the 2023 AZA conference on a A culture of care: Individual, team, leadership and organisational aspects of human wellbeing in zoos and aquariums.

Download

2023 Job roles article

Download our peer-reviewed article on Understanding Job Satisfaction and Occupational Stressors of Distinctive Roles in Zoos and Aquariums

Download

Additional services

People who work with animals care deeply about them, so it makes sense to include their wellbeing in the conversation. And put plainly, there's no point talking about the care of people and animals if we're not also going to talk about the planet we all share.

Animal wellbeing

Planetary wellbeing

Career coaching

Organisations we've worked with

Connect with us

Do you have a question? A suggestion or idea you want to share? Use the contact form we will get back to you shortly! You can also email us on hello(@)animalconcepts.eu