Foundation against Cancer : grant

The “Fondation contre le Cancer” (Foundation against Cancer) has approved a grant of € 60.000 for the project ' Medical and Social Coaching of the isolated cancer patient’, which will be implemented by the Brugmann Foundation in collaboration with the Social Service and the Hemato-Oncology Department of the Brugmann University Hospital. With the help of the ‘social coach ' – a social worker by training-we strive for a more sustainable intervention than the one actually offered by the institutional framework. The isolated cancer patients do not have the necessary resources at different levels (financial, family, language barrier, illiteracy, psychiatric disorders). They have specific needs that the social support offered by the hospital does not always cover.
These needs include physical assistance while dealing with administrative procedures and organisation of daily activities. The ‘social coach’ works with trusted partners. He will do the evaluation by means of home visits. The needs of the patient also include coordination and management of doctors’ appointments and organisation of transport.

The ‘social coach’ will be responsible for the coordination of all these elements, including insurance, transport and "intensive" networks of home care, that are required for proper treatment. He will have an informative role and should provide both advice and operational guidance for solving administrative problems as well as creating a network around the patient.
Thanks to his intervention, the isolated patient will gradually acquire more autonomy. To achieve this, the ‘social coach’ will supply tools and methodologies to the patients in order to develop their medical and social autonomy.

“Medical and social coaching" implies that the social worker, in the performance of his duties, will be assisted by oncologists, psychologists, onco-dietitians and intercultural mediators who will clarify particular problems for him and the effects they have on the treatment’s success. The "Quality Cell", which is composed of a multidisciplinary team will evaluate the project.