Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services
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Mission Statement
Jacob’s Heart Children’s Cancer Support Services exists to improve the quality of life for children with cancer by supporting their families in the challenges they face. Since 1998, Jacob’s Heart has provided emotional, practical, financial and peer support to hundreds of local children and teens with cancer and thousands of their family members and accompanied their unique experiences throughout treatment, anticipatory grief, and bereavement. We envision a community where every child with cancer or in remission from cancer has a strong, supported, and informed family empowered to fully participate in their care. And, in the unimaginable circumstance that a child dies, we accompany grieving families in a compassionate, consistent, and culturally responsive way. We strive to inspire compassionate action within local communities to create a safety net of support for the unique needs of each child and family.
About This Cause
For the past 25 years, Jacob’s Heart Children’s Cancer Support Services has addressed the financial, emotional, and existential challenges faced by families enduring the unimaginable, honoring the words of Jacob’s mother, “You can handle anything if you don’t have to handle it alone.” Jacob’s Heart provides services in alignment with humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. Maslow’s theory asserts that a human’s needs exist in an order of significance, and that basic needs must be met before the individual can give their attention to the higher needs. Our programs address the basic needs for families of children with cancer, while building toward hope and healing, even when there is no cure. Our #1 priority is keeping medically fragile children and their families housed, fed, and emotionally supported. Our model of care is rooted in a deep respect for the multifaceted and unique needs of every family caring for a seriously ill or dying child. We meet families where they are, building relationships and responding to their most urgent and pressing needs by focusing on four critical services: 1. Food and living supplies Underserved cancer patients are especially vulnerable to the health implications of food insecurity due to the nature of the disease and impact of treatment. Unmet supportive care needs, depression, and poor physical and emotional well-being are associated with missed appointments and treatment delays and/or interruptions. Our Full Hearts Grocery Delivery Program provides weekly deliveries of nutritious groceries, recipes, and cooking directions directly to families’ doorsteps. This service has more than doubled to meet the increasing need and alleviate the risk posed by going to the grocery store. 2. Safe, reliable transportation to essential medical appointments Transportation barriers disproportionately affect cancer patients, particularly if they are young, uninsured or live below the poverty line. Missed appointments affect the patient’s health and compromise clinical productivity. Transportation barriers also prevent patients, especially those from underserved communities, from participating in clinical trials, which could be life-saving. Though childhood cancer affects children across our service area, most critical treatment is available only at Stanford or UCSF, an hours-long journey for many of the families we serve. Our well-trained, compassionate drivers provide safe, sanitized rides to these out-of-town appointments through our Transportation Program and get to know each child and family and become trusted friends, confidants, and companions. 3. Crisis counseling Prolonged stress and inadequate access to care can have destructive influences on the physical and social functioning of caregivers and siblings including anxiety, insomnia, a sense of isolation, problems with concentration, burnout, despondency, mood instability, and eating disorders which can lead to chronic disease. Jacob’s Heart offers emotional support through direct assistance, counseling, home visits, expressive arts, support groups, and more. We provide families with a foundation of tangible support and stability in English and Spanish, with psychotherapists with expertise in children’s complex grief and trauma. 4. Emergency financial assistance A majority (95%) of families say their child’s cancer caused a financial burden on their family and 94% of parents cut hours, quit a job, or quit doing overtime because of their child’s illness. One in four families lose more than 40% of their annual household income as a result of treatment-related work disruption. Jacob’s Heart ensures that low-income families caring for a medically fragile child receive immediate assistance to keep seriously ill children in their homes including payments for rent, utilities, phone, fuel and other expenses related to the safety and care of the child with cancer. Support for these four core services will allow Jacob’s Heart to achieve our commitments to our supporters and community: 1) Parents of children with cancer will be relieved of financial fears and able to focus attention on their child with cancer; 2) No child with cancer in our community will be homeless; 3) Families of children with cancer will not experience food insecurity; and 4) No child with cancer in our community will ever miss a medical appointment because of lack of transportation.