Standing Committee on Career Attributes
The Standing Committee on Career Attributes (SCoCA) was founded in July 2019 to work toward improving the professionalism and soft-skills of IVSA members around the world and provide structure to the previously established IVSA Trainer’s Network. SCoCA aims to complement veterinary education with opportunities to improve career attributes to allow for a successful future career in veterinary medicine for all veterinary students around the world.
Mission
Facilitate the development and enhancement of Soft-Skills (ie: communication, leadership, teamwork, time-management, etc.) of veterinary students worldwide
Provide veterinary students with tools to develop the necessary attributes required for a successful career in veterinary medicine
Promote and coordinate the IVSA Trainer’s Network allowing IVSA members to become Trainers to share their knowledge and skills with other students
Projects
Trainers Network
The IVSA Trainer’s Network was established in July 2016 with the aim of improving the level of professionalism within IVSA and enabling students to develop Soft-Skills they can utilise to train fellow IVSA members. The first ‘Training New Trainers’ (TNT) event took place in Brno, Czech Republic in July 2016 in collaboration with the European Pharmacy Students’ Association (EPSA).
Training New Trainers Events (TNTs)
Training New Trainers (TNT) events are opportunities for IVSA members to become Canditate Trainers and begin the journey to becoming an IVSA Trainer! TNTs broadly aim to guide candidate trainers into discovering who they are, what they want to achieve, and how to share this newfound knowledge with other individuals.
In the first portion of a TNT, workshops are focused on candidates’ own self-discovery and self-improvement through utilisation of specific outlined tools delivered by the presenting Trainers.
The second part of a TNT is focused on utilising this newfound self-development to instruct and guide other individuals toward achieving this same self-development (how to train others). A TNT event ends with the candidates delivering a graduation workshop to a group of individuals not associated with the TNT.
Trainers Library
The “Trainers Library” (TL) is a collection of useful resources, documents, lesson plans etc. for IVSA Trainers. The TL has separate folders containing documents on how to organise training events, explanation of training content, promotional materials, minutes of the meetings, etc.
The TL is managed by the Trainer Librarian (scoca.tn.librarian@ivsa.org). Please get in contact if you have any questions regarding the Trainers Library.
Survey
SCoCA wants to understand the level of soft skills teaching in your veterinary education, which soft-skills you value most, and what attributes have made our alumni feel successful as veterinary graduates. Take our Survey here!
Coming soon....
SCOCA Blog
Keep up to date with the latest Career Attribute related content to improve your soft-skills and design your own training sessions!
Coming soon...
Becoming A Trainer
More information coming soon!
Committee Structure
Chair of Committee: Emily Freeman, email: scoca@ivsa.org
Secretary/Trainers Librarian, email: scoca.tn.librarian@ivsa.org
Trainers Network Managers, email: scoca.tn.manager@ivsa.org
TNT Coordinators, email: scoca.tnt.coordinator@ivsa.org
Public Relations Coordinator/Social Media Manager, email: scoca.prc@ivsa.org