SERVICEFORCHILDREN IMPACTEDBY
CANCER (CIC)
When an adult is diagnosedwith cancer, thewhole family
is affected. As the adults in the family undergo the stress
of juggling withmultiple concerns and emotional distress,
the children can feel unsettled over the sudden changes
aswell.
Leveraging on CCF’s experience and expertise in
providing psychosocial support to children with cancer
and their families, CCF introduced the Support Services
for Children Impacted by Cancer (CIC) programme
in 2013 to help children who are affected by having
a main caregiver suffering from cancer or passed on
due to cancer. The programme provides services such
as counselling, psycho-education intervention and
therapeutic play.
To better enhance the coping ability of this particular
group of children, CCF launched four new programmes
in 2015 – Mementos, ProjectWish, Tree of Life
andVoices.
Most children under the CIC programme experience
anticipatorygrief in thewakeof theircaregiver’sadvanced
illness. To help foster and preserve the relationship
between the child and caregiver during this challenging
period, a kit comprising activity materials centred on the
themes of “Love”, “Thank You”, “Sorry”, “Forgive” and
“Remember” is given to the child and the caregiver. The
child can then keep these items in a box to symbolise the
storing of memorable bonds with the caregiver. In 2015,
a total of 14 kitswere distributed.
TheProjectWish programme aims to promote the child’s
bondingand interactionswith the caregiver by creatinga
positive andmemorable experience for the entire family.
While the family has the opportunity to have enjoyable
moments in the midst of distress from the caregiver’s
illness, the experiencewill also create a lastingmemory
for the family after the caregiver has passed on. Two
families had benefitted from this programme.
On 21 November 2015, CCF conducted our first “Tree
of Life” session where seven beneficiaries created their
own “Tree of Life” to relate their personal stories by using
different parts of the tree to represent their character,
values, attributes, skills, knowledge, hopes, dreams
as well as people special to them. The participants
then placed their trees together to create a “Forest of
Life” which symbolised the community as they faced
the "storms" in life together. The process encouraged
self-discovery of their resilience and the sharing of
experiencesamongpeersempowered themwithcourage
and strength to copewith challenges in life.
In order to address the misconceptions and myths that
surviving caregivers have regarding children’s grief, CCF
conducted a workshop named “Voices” on 9 September
2015. Attended by 17 participants from six families, the
workshop included a psycho-educational talk to provide
the surviving caregivers with useful tips in supporting
their children during the grieving process. A therapeutic
play session was also held for the children to share
their thoughts and feelings on their loss with other
grieving children through the exercise of making paper
boats. Caregivers acted as their “lighthouses” to provide
guidance and support as they sailed through the journey
of loss and grief.
Number of beneficiaries:
88
Casework in 2015:
130
CASEWORKSESSIONS
192
COUNSELLINGSESSIONS
176
FOLLOWUPCONTACTS
355
THERAPEUTICPLAYSESSIONS
545
HOMEVISITS
20
