Stigma, feelings of helplessness, lack of proper guidance, confusing medical terminology and procedures, uncertain futures - these and other stressors are deterrents to accessing childhood cancer care. CanKids helps children fighting cancer and their families overcome these hurdles through survivor-helping-survivor and parent-helping-parent activities. CanKids supports a family-centred approach, advocacy by patients and caregivers, and enables patient participation.
Patient Navigation, Advocacy, and Family Engagement Department supports and unifies patients, parents & caregivers and survivors for safeguarding their rights during treatment, in survivorship and bereavement. 
  1. Patient Navigation at treating centres, and care coordination across centres, cities, and states.  Includes YANA, YANA-Hold My Hand, Navya 2nd Opinions, outings, celebrations, gifts, Parent/Survivor Helping funds, and Disability Certificate Facilitation Service.
  2. Patient/ Parents & Caregivers and Survivors works for awareness and advocacy and participates in Researches
  3. They are involved in family engagement through patient education, Capacity & Skill Building that helps in their Reintegration and livelihood for both children and families.

1,997 Survivors 

Under the survivor group of Cankids 'KidsCan Konnect', childhood cancer survivors work to offer peer support, empower children with cancer and help them reintegrate with society, raise awareness on childhood cancer, advocate for the rights of children with cancer, and participate in late side effects research studies and projects.
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​KidsCan Konnect began in 2006 with 8 members in New Delhi. By 2014, 10 chapters were formed in other major cities. We aim to have 3000 members by the end of 2023-24.

2,821 Parents

'Path Pradarshak Parivarik Sahayak Group', or P3SG, is a group of parents who have experience with childhood cancer care become Patient Navigators/ Advocates for newly seeking treatment and families unknown to Cancer.
​They work to spread awareness and raise their voices for the rights of children with cancer and their family.
District Parent Patient Navigators models of Patient Advocates contributes in ‘Access to Care’ by providing the referral pathways for the children suspected with cancer partnering with social and governmental networks.

Through our unique model of Patient Navigation, we have enrolled and trained 74 dedicated parents and caregivers, and another 2,821members at our CHSUs.

3 Patient Advocacy Groups

Comprising Parents and Survivors of Retinoblastoma, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and APML paediatric cancer registered in the Survivor and Parents groups of Cankids under the program of One Cancer at a Time for their specific advocacy. 

Our Objectives

Patient Navigation, Advocacy, and Family Engagement aims to :
  1. Provide the Patient Centric Care keeping the patient at the centre of every aspect of childhood cancer and the other aspect of life.
  2. Build Patient Navigator/ Care Coordinators/District Parents Patient Navigators and Patient Advocate members and their group as a continuous process.
  3. Spread Awareness to reach every section of the society regarding the childhood cancer and stamp out the stigma from the society.
  4. Raise the Patient voices and represent the interest of children with cancer, parents, survivors and families to all stakeholders.
​Survivorship means looking to the future and addressing the long-term concerns of children with cancer and their families. To do this, we focus on four key areas:
Livelihood
Many parents may need to leave their hometowns and their jobs to seek cancer treatment for their children. We provide them opportunities to earn a livelihood through work like stitching, washing, ironing, and assembling kits for hygiene, COVID safety, and ration.

Reintegration
Our parent and survivor groups help children with cancer return to their normal lives by providing formal and informal educational during the course of treatment, as well as vocational training in order to confidently pursue work in their adult life.

Empowerment
We aim to up-skill and build the capacity of Patient Navigators, parents, and other family members of children with cancer. Our Girl Child Project also gives special focus to removing gender-based inequalities in accessing cancer treatment. ​

Fellowship
Through KidsCan Konnect (KCK), we offer survivors a chance to develop professional skills and habits through the opportunity of fellowship. Our goal is to create a pool of career-enhanced professionals. 

Project Suddridh
​Health System Strengthening and Access2 Care
One Cancer At a Time (OCAT)

CanKids is committed to Health System Strengthening (HSS) and Access2Care thereby driving better Survival rates and improved outcomes for children with cancer and families. Suddridh project aims is to strengthen pediatric oncology services at a treating center by increasing access to quality and standard treatment and ensuring the minimal requirements for delivery of optimal care with the help of pediatric oncology expert/ advisors and or higher treating centers.

Aim and objectives of Project Suddridh

Focused Disease-specific childhood cancer projects
  1. Manpower and capacity building for dedicated pediatric oncology Nurses to improve the standard of care 
  2. Establishing a comprehensive pediatric palliative care service pan India for CanKids with Subhita center in Delhi as the flagship
  3. Pediatric oncology outreach services -for new centers, centers with no pediatric oncologists - through twinning, Virtual Tumor Board s for ongoing capacity building and system strengthening
 
Disease-specific childhood cancer projects including:
  1. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL)
  2. Hodgkin’s Lymphoma & Relapsed HL (HL & RHL)
  3. Bone and Soft tissue sarcoma (BSTS)
  4. Retinoblastoma (RB) INPOG Study closure and planning for next study.  
  5. Acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APML)
 
Paediatric Oncology Nursing Program 
  1. Development of Nursing Curriculum and distribution of pocket hand book during PHOCON
  2. On-line teaching sessions for the Nurses as part of our capacity building initiative.
  3. Collaboration with SJG for nurses program. 
 
Pediatric Palliative Care Service
  1. Virtual OPD three days a week to provide access of palliative care to Patients PAN India except Delhi NCR region.
  2. Physical OPD three days a week for Palliative care patient of Delhi NCR region. 
This service is a part of a comprehensive program that can also offer a physical OPD inclusive of social support team, Day care service, hospice care and interventional procedural support.

Outreach Clinics
  1. Pediatric oncology outreach services -for new centers, centers with no pediatric oncologists - through twinning, Virtual Tumor Boards for ongoing capacity building and system strengthening
  2. We have started outreach clinics for various centers like MCS Patna, CCHRC Silchar, AIIMS Jodhpur, ACC Bhatinda, CHRC Gwalior, Shroff Hospital Delhi, IGIMS Patna and Kamla Nehru Hospital Allahabad.
  3. To increase the number from 8 to 12 by 2022.
  4. Identify right partners to collaborate for funding POOC development, faculty. 

Interventions under the project ​

The interventions for all projects include :
  1. Research and collaboration. 
  2. Service delivery and patient support 
  3. Patient education 
  4. Awareness and Advocacy.

Provisions under the project ​

As in all HSS the goal is to address :
  1. Service Delivery
  2. Health Workforce 
  3. Health Information System 
  4. Access to essential Medicine 
  5. Financing 
  6. Leadership and Governance