Age Connects Cardiff & the Vale’s New Cancer, Older People’s Advocacy Project

Age Connects Cardiff and & Vale (ACCV) has been involved in providing an advocacy service since 1994 and has vast experience offering a range of stimulating and interesting volunteer opportunities, so we are very excited to have been chosen as the only provider in Wales to be part of the Cancer, Older People and Advocacy project covering Cardiff and & the Vale. Our aim is to help resolve issues or difficulties, cancer related or not, to improve quality of life.

It has been a very busy couple of months recruiting and setting up the project.  We aim to roll out our first training session at the end of August 2014 so we have been conscious not to advertise our project too quickly yet we have already received 4 referrals which our independent advocate has made contact with. Our volunteer coordinator has received interest from 3 very good potential Peer Cancer Support Advocates.

The team went up to Staffordshire for the day in May, to meet with the Beth Johnston Foundation, who are our mentors.  They have been a great source of support and information. And the team also signed up to the first webinar in June, facilitated by Macmillan Cancer Support nationally. The session was a success and lead to some very useful contacts.

 

Phil Vining, Manager, Cancer, Older People and Advocacy, Age Connects Cardiff & the Vale

We have started to slowly raise awareness of our project by meeting with our regional Macmillan team, who have been excellent in providing us with useful contacts.

Phil Vining, Manager, Cancer, Older People’s Advocacy Project, Age Connects Cardiff & the Vale

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Meet ICANN

Independent Community Advocacy Network North (ICANN) have been involved in providing Advocacy services since 1995, and are extremely pleased to have been chosen to be a part of the Cancer, Older People and Advocacy project. The area we will be covering within Lancashire is for residents of Preston, Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire Districts.

It has been a very busy first few weeks! ICANN are lucky to have a pool of existing experienced volunteer advocates, of whom 7, have already expressed an interest in working on this exciting new project, and we will be providing project specific training to them in July, ready for our official launch on the 1^st of August.

We have started awareness raising within health environments including our local cancer information centre, with 3 referrals so far, all around different issues, and can already see how valuable a service this will be particularly for those who are isolated, without much of a support network.

Display from recent awareness event (Health and Wellbeing event in West Lancashire at Edgehill University)

Recruitment for members of our Local Cancer Champions Board, has been so successful, that along with agreeing terms of reference, and electing a chair at our first board meeting, we decided that we would need to change venue for next LCCB meeting in September, as our board room is not big enough!  We also hope to move around the region for these meetings to encourage attendance from all areas, with groups as diverse as Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) representatives, other local charities working within health or with older people, along with older people who have been affected by cancer themselves.  A representative from this group, was also able to attend the National Cancer Champion’s Board Meeting in London recently at Macmillan Cancer Support HQ.

Staff are busy looking at more ways to promote the service locally, including a flagship event planned for October, to bring together a number of organisations in allied fields, speakers from health and advocacy will elaborate on the Cancer, Older People and Advocacy project, and how we can best work together for the good of our shared client group.  ICANN have close links with Lancashire LGBT and hope to continue joint awareness raising, sharing of resources, experiences and training where appropriate.

Janet Cullingford, Services Manager, ICANN