Looking back over the last year at ICANN

Janet Cullingford, Services Manager at delivery partner ICANN tells us about their recent AGM and input on the day related to their cancer advocacy work:

On Tuesday 6^th October Independent Community Advocacy Network North (ICANN) held our Annual General Meeting, as well as the usual AGM business, this gave us a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our involvement with OPAAL on the Cancer Older People and Advocacy Project, by showcasing the Cancer Voices presentation, including film.

Angela Broadbridge the project lead from OPAAL, introduced this with a presentation explaining both the Cancer Voices and ‘Train the Trainer’ work which we participated in. 

 

Our audience were then invited to watch a short film designed to encourage health professionals to refer older people affected by cancer to our service. These films are also available on this blog, and on You tube. This was very well received, with people commenting on how it brought the project to life.

 

 

This was followed by two ICANN ‘train the trainer’ representatives, talking about their own cancer journeys; Richard Timson, one of our volunteer peer advocates involved with our Cancer Older People and Advocacy work, and Marilyn Eckton who is a member of our Local Cancer Champions Board. They were both wonderful advocates for the benefits of the Cancer Older People and Advocacy project. Their stories were both emotive and powerful and told from their own experiences. Whilst those experiences were quite different both had also shared many of the same issues, issues which could have been improved with the support of a peer advocate.    

Since this event they have been invited by two of our local clinical commissioning groups, to present to their boards. They will talk about the project, as part of the patient experience group, to inform future service delivery.

Janet Cullingford, ICANN

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ICANN Flagship Event – Cancer and Older people

ICANN held a Flagship Event around Cancer and Older People, in conjunction with our AGM on the 1^st October 2014, at St Cuthbert’s Church Hall, Fulwood, Preston.

The event was to promote our new Cancer Older People & Advocacy project. Invited guests included volunteers, cancer champions, service users and representatives from other local organisations.

ICANN AGM with Denise Partington CEO of ICANN, with Kevin Wright, Chair of Trustees

Our two guest speakers were Kath Curley from Beth Johnson Foundation and Paolo Dey from the Department of Health at the University of Central Lancashire. Kath talked about experiences and learning from being a Cancer, Older People and Advocacy pilot project partner, and how with the support of Macmillan Cancer Support, Beth Johnson Foundation had successfully extended the service to cover the county of Staffordshire. Paolo has a specialist interest in epidemiology relating to health inequalities and informed us about local statistics in relation to older people with cancer, and how this compared to national statistics along with those for other age groups.

Kath Curley

Local organisations including Age Concern, Alzheimers Society, Healthwatch, Help Direct, and Connect 4 Life, joined with Rosemere Cancer Information Centre, Vine House, our local Clinical Commissioning Groups  and UCLAN in hosting display stands to raise awareness of their services. This provided lots of great networking opportunities for all participants and am sure will enable us to work better together in the future.

We concluded with a luscious cream tea, which was enjoyed by all our guests.

ICANN staff enjoying the cakes!

 

Janet Cullingford, Services Manager, ICANN