Cancer Hope Network, a national nonprofit organization that provides one-on-one peer mentorship support to adult cancer patients and their caregivers, is launching Hopeful Hearts: Parents Supporting Parents on June 3.
The peer mentor program, based in Chester, has been designed to meet the needs and concerns of parents whose children are facing cancer. Hopeful Hearts connects parents facing pediatric and adolescent cancer with other parents whose children are cancer survivors to offer emotional support and optimism. The parents are connected with trained peer mentors who’ve successfully navigated their own child’s cancer diagnosis and post-treatment survivorship. According to the American Cancer Society, about 15,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in the United States each year.
“We created Hopeful Hearts because we recognized parents of pediatric cancer patients were in need of support,” said Beth Blakey, executive director and chief operating officer of Cancer Hope Network. “While some hospitals offer parental support programs, not all of them do. Our key point of difference is that we provide parental support regardless of the hospital where a child is being treated. It is our deep understanding of the cancer caregiver experience that has informed our commitment to such a program because there is no one who better understands the situation than someone who has walked in those shoes.”
Hopeful Hearts is powered by a family funder who is passionate about helping families that are on a pediatric cancer journey.
Cancer Hope Network offers all peer mentors free training to help them feel comfortable and ready to offer understanding and compassion. To become a peer mentor volunteer, you must be the parent or guardian of a pediatric cancer survivor who has been at least one year out of active treatment.
