The Best Friends Podcast Episode 96
As animal welfare focuses more on supporting pets and their people, how do we best provide those services in areas that historically have not had essential resources, such as veterinary services and pet supplies?
CARE (Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity) recently launched a new program, CARE Centers. A model through which they hope will provide those services and engage the "proximate leaders" from within those neighborhoods. It's a unique approach and, if successful, could lead to CARE Centers across the country.
What is the model, how does it work, and what does the future hold? We spoke with Mike Bricker, the Chief Strategy Officer for CARE to learn more.
Click here to check out all the episodes from the podcast.
Resources from this episode- Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity - CARE Centers
- Best Friends: How to Start a Pet Food Pantry, Best Friends
- Best Friends: How to Host a Vaccine Clinic, Best Friends
- Best Friends Town Hall: Keeping Families Together
- Best Friends Town Hall: Moving Beyond Bias with CARE
- Best Friends Town Hall: Moving Beyond Bias with CARE 2.0
- Best Friends network vlog: A New Focus on Animal Control Officers
- Best Friends network vlog: Embracing Diversity in the Animal Welfare Movement
- Best Friends Podcast: Leaning in and Listening
- Best Friends Podcast: Removing Lifesaving Barriers
- Best Friends Podcast: Treating Animals and People as Individuals
- Best Friends network: Adoption Barrier Study, Best Friends Research
- Best Friends network: Humane Education, Best Friends
- Best Friends network: Animal Welfare Should Tear Down Walls to Pet Ownership
- Best Friends network: Shelters Closing Access to Care Gap for At-Risk Communities, program spotlight
- Best Friends network: Outdated Policies Prevent Shelters from Partnering with Public
- Best Friends network: Animal Control Officers Lead Change for Shelters
- Best Friends network: Best Friends Moves to DEI
- Best Friends network: Best Friends Staff Experiences with Racism in Animal Welfare
- Best Friends network: Reducing Racism in Animal Welfare
This week's guest
Mike Bricker
chief strategy officer, Companions and Animals for Reform and Equity (CARE)
Michael Bricker is the Chief Strategy Officer and Director of CARE Centers. Michael develops the organizational strategy and sustaining that through the management of all of our departments. As CARE Center Director, Michael curates strategies for each CARE Center and develop a national model for workforce development that partners from the community up to local shelters to provide sustainable change and save more animals.
He is the former Director of Operations for the Shelter Embed program at Best Friends. He spent most of his time in Texas, as interim Executive Director at different shelters, where he used his compassion and talent to get to know the staff, put the time in to connect with the community, all while saving more animals. During his time in Texas, he was able to take Palm Valley Animal Society from a 34% live release to 93%, and Abilene Animal Serrvices from 55% to 89%. Before Best Friends, Mike was the Director of Operations at Camden County Animal Shelter (CCAS). In addition to rewriting the shelter’s adoption policies, Mike helped to create a lifesaving department, launch CCAS’s community cat program, pioneer the Rent-A-Dog program and modernize the shelter’s medical operations.
Episode Transcript