We Attended Breast Cancer Care’s Launch of their Breast Cancer and Ethnicity Research

Tag: breast cancer care

January 27, 2016

We Attended Breast Cancer Care’s Launch of their Breast Cancer and Ethnicity Research

On Monday, we attended Breast Cancer Care’s reception in Parliament where they launched the findings of their research into the needs of Black, Asian and minority (BAME) women after treatment for breast cancer. Their research was funded by the Big Lottery Fund and was a collaboration with King’s College London.

This event was hosted by Dawn Butler MP, whose mother and sister were affected by breast cancer. Speaking at the reception, the Chief Executive of Breast Cancer Care Samia al Qadhi, summarised the findings stating that BAME women felt a greater sense of isolation after treatment, there was still a significant amount of stigma associated with breast cancer in certain cultures, there is a lack of culturally sensitive support, a number of communication and language issues, and services do not always meet the needs of BAME women. Breast Cancer Care explained that to address these issues they piloted a new culturally inclusive service in 2015 called PROWESS (Promoting Recovery, Wellbeing, Equality and Support in Survivorship). This service supported the self-management of BAME women after their hospital-based treatment for breast cancer. You can read more about PROWESS here.

Breast Cancer Care stated that policy-makers must consider the needs of BAME women in the implementation of current cancer strategies and ensure that new policies are inclusive and that everyone working in this area has to develop an understanding of how services can be culturally adapted.

During the reception we also heard from Heather Wilson from the Black Health Initiative in Leeds. Ms Wilson was very supportive of the research and its recommendations and stressed the importance of effective partnerships in addressing the issues raised during the research project.

We applaud the work being done by Breast Cancer Care to address the inequalities that exist in this area and look forward to seeing the next phase of this work. We were pleased to have been a part of the working group for PROWESS and hope that this programme will be launched nation wide.

By Lake Health and Wellbeing

BlogCancer Blogs

December 4, 2014

Breast Cancer Care’s New Pilot Service PROWESS

This week’s blog post comes from Ben Langston from Breast Cancer Care. Ben discusses Breast Cancer Care’s new support service, PROWESS, which is aimed at BME women recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

What is PROWESS?

Well first of all, PROWESS stands for Promoting Recovery, Wellbeing, Equality and Support in Survivorship.

Breast Cancer Care has been working to improve their services, and provide more tailored support to women from different ethnic and social backgrounds. We know that we need to support more women and make services relevant and easier to access.

We’ve talked to lots of women from different ethnic and social backgrounds who‘ve had breast cancer. With the help of all the women we spoke to, we’ve designed a new five-week pilot service called PROWESS which we’ll be delivering in South London between March and July 2015.

The PROWESS pilot service aims to provide information, practical advice and emotional support. There will also be support given by women who have had breast cancer and who have been trained by Breast Cancer Care to help others.

The service is open to anyone who has finished their hospital treatment for breast cancer in the last 12 months. PROWESS will last for 5 half days over 5 weeks (one half day per week for 5 weeks).

When & Where Will PROWESS Start?

The first 5 day PROWESS service will start in March 2015 and will be held in the Deptford area of South London. All in all PROWESS will be delivered 4 times in 2015, but not all of them will be in Deptford, but other locations in South London too. Carrying out the service 4 times in 2015 will help us understand how good it is and what we might need to change or improve to make sure we can provide this kind of support locally to women all over London and the UK in the future.

What’s Happening Right Now?

We now have four volunteers who’ve been trained to carry out community engagement work. They are Marcia, Nevo, Lorraine and Yvonne. These four amazing ladies are going out into their local communities, visiting different places and spreading the word about the PROWESS pilot service. They’re working hard to recruit BME women onto the pilot, and I have no doubt they’ll do a great job (we’re aiming to find 60 women to take part in the pilot).As we’ve said, the service is open to anyone who’s finished their hospital treatment in the last 12 months. If you, or someone you know might want more information about the service or just chat about it then contact Ben Langston.

Call: 0207 960 3498
Email: ben.Langston@breastcancercare.org.uk

By Lake Health and Wellbeing