CancerCare’s Carolyn Messner, DSW, OSW-C, FAPOS, FAOSW, Director of Education and Training at CancerCare, received the Association of Oncology Social Work’s (AOSW) Quality of Life in Cancer Care Award, a prestigious honor sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

I joined CancerCare last fall and immediately began working on a multi-stakeholder disaster response program for cancer patients. The first order of the day was to call individuals who had been involved in assisting patients in past disasters to learn what their organizations had done, to understand the challenges faced by cancer patients in the wake of a disaster, and to hear ideas on how we might jointly work on those challenges in the future.

Since 1944, the size and scope of CancerCare has grown tremendously but it has never wavered from its mission of helping people impacted by cancer.

CancerCare is excited to announce that our New Jersey location has moved to 1 Kalisa Way, Suite 205 in Paramus, New Jersey. This larger space will allow our New Jersey oncology social workers to expand programs and better serve clients in the area.

CancerCare recently received a $700,000 grant from The New York Community Trust to provide financial assistance to low-income New Yorkers affected by cancer.

Dr. Michael Wong is professor of medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He also sits on the advisory board of CancerCare’s Patient Values Initiative, a program of work designed to make sure that patients’ values and priorities are incorporated into treatment decision-making. Here he shares his thoughts on how we can ensure patient preferences are built into treatment programs and what care teams can be doing right now to make a difference.

Amy Berman is a senior program officer with The John A. Hartford Foundation, a private philanthropy dedicated to improving the care of older adults, as well as an author, blogger and patient advocate living with Stage IV breast cancer. She is a member of CancerCare’s Patient Values Initiatives advisory board, helping to make sure that patients’ values and priorities are incorporated intro treatment decision-making. Here Amy reveals why she chose palliative care over curative treatments and discusses the challenges to integrating patient preferences into cancer treatment planning.

On the second weekend of June, CancerCare hosted the 10th annual Healing Hearts Family Bereavement Camp, a free retreat for families and children coping with the loss of a loved one to cancer. For this year’s camp, 27 families spent the weekend at the Malibu Dude Ranch in Milford, PA, at an ocean-themed retreat. Families came to the camp from the tri-state area, as well as Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

On June 12th, CancerCare‘s Young Professionals Committee held their inaugural fundraiser, Cocktails for a Cause. The event was held at The Michael Kors Building in Soho and was attended by over 100 industry leaders under 40 years old from the greater New York City area.

Sarah’s presentation highlighted psychosocial challenges for young adults with metastatic cancer, in order to better inform clinical practice in the oncology community.