The Family Centered Veterinary Care Proficiency (CFCVCP) is your guide to building a veterinary care program focused on the pet care family. In this course participants will learn to see each case as an animal family unit and practice core values of partnership, respect, clear information-sharing, and emotional support. Through practical tips and scenarios, explore how family dynamics, culture, and finances shape decisions, and how to prepare for successful visits. Learners build skills in empathy-based interviewing, plain-language explanations with teach-back, and shared decision-making that balances medical needs with client realities. Lessons cover how to create collaborative, stepwise care plans that fit real life, improve adherence, and reduce conflict. Partipants also gain strategies for navigating money concerns, prognosis and uncertainty, and compassionate end-of-life and grief conversations. Finally, practical exercises help practitioners learn how to build an inclusive, family-friendly clinic with clear team roles, supportive workflows, and ways to measure impact, so you can deliver care that is realistic, transparent, and humane.

At the completion of this course, the learner should be able to:

* Explain the principles and benefits of family-centered veterinary care.

* Identify and document the animal–family unit, decision-makers, and communication/privacy preferences.

* Apply core behaviors of partnership, respect, information-sharing, and emotional support throughout care.

* Conduct empathy-based interviews (NURSE, BATHE) to elicit goals, values, and barriers.

* Provide plain-language explanations and confirm understanding using teach-back and qualified interpreters.

* Facilitate shared decision-making and create tiered, SMART care plans with transparent costs

* Improve adherence and address money, prognosis, and uncertainty with clear frameworks and safety-net guidance.

* Lead compassionate end-of-life and grief conversations and build an inclusive, family-friendly clinic with defined team roles, workflows, and simple metrics.

PENDING RACE APPROVAL STATEMENT
This program is pending approval by AAVSB-RACE to offer a total of 1.00 CE Credits (1.00 max) being available to any one veterinarian: and/or 1.00 Veterinary Technician CE Credits (1.00 max). Participants should verify recognition with their state board(s) and should be aware that some boards have limitations on the number of hours accepted in certain categories and/or restrictions of certain methods of delivery of continuing education.