Our comprehensive Family Support Service is tailored to help patients and their families navigate the emotional and practical challenges associated with a secondary (Metastatic) breast cancer diagnosis and the anticipatory grief that is experienced, in different ways, by the family. 

 

What is the Family Support Service?

Our service is centred around Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) therapy that can provide families with the building blocks and practical tools to help with processing grief, trauma and loss. Our hope is that it can help you as a family manage difficult conversations and feelings, and that the support is useful, comforting, and meaningful during an especially challenging time.

What is Anticipatory Grief?

Anticipatory grief  is the feeling of grief or loss experienced before an actual death or other significant loss occurs. It's a natural response to the knowledge that a loved one is facing a terminal illness, an impending major life change, or a situation with a predictable, painful outcome. This type of grief can involve a range of emotions, including sadness, anxiety, fear, and even relief, and it can be experienced by both the person facing the loss and those close to them. 

What do you get from the service?

Every family will receive the following:

  • A pack of Reflection Records, 30 cards split into three categories: Looking Back, About Me and Looking Ahead, with the aim to encourage open family conversations around difficult subject matters.  There are spaces on each card to record your answers. 
  • Textured Sensory Calming Stickers, soothing and calming to help ease anxiety.
  • My Cancer Record, a detailed health timeline which you fill in, to help future generations have access to important family medical information.
  • A copy of 'The Death Book' (if requested), to help the family document funeral, death and end of life wishes as well as other planning and admin tasks.
  • Two Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) sessions, delivered via Zoom, one for the family member living with SBC and one for the partner and child or children. Further funded EFT sessions may be available to the families if certain criteria is met following evaluation.

Who can access the service?

During our pilot we are accepting families in Scotland where a parent is diagnosed with secondary (metastatic) breast cancer and has a child or children under the age of 21. 

Helpful links

Here are some useful signposting links to various charities and services that offer support to families.

 

sign up for the service

 

We are thankful to The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland for providing the funding for this pilot with Scottish families

Resources