Surviving Cancer CAMPetently: Evidence-based Care Delivered at Family Camp
Psychosocial care addressing the distress and family disruption that pediatric cancer causes is a minimum standard of care for children with cancer and their families. Empirically-validated interventions are available; however, such care is not routinely provided at oncology treatment facilities. We propose to launch a program of research focused on bringing a proven-effective psychosocial intervention into one of the most successful and widely used forms of community support for families of children with cancer – a pediatric oncology camp. Our research team proposes to work with Camp Directors and Family Campers from Camp Okizu in California to develop and test ways to deliver the Surviving Cancer Competently Intervention Program (SCCIP©) at Family Camp. SCCIP is a manualized intervention demonstrated to reduce cancer-related post-traumatic stress symptoms (e.g., intrusive thoughts, feeling on edge) for families of children with cancer. SCCIP teaches coping skills and ways to improve family communication about cancer in a series of four group-based sessions, typically delivered on a single day.
Project Goal: While the format and content of SCCIP seems ideal for delivery at Family Camp (weekend camp sessions involving parents, patient/survivors and siblings), we need to figure out how best to integrate it into that setting. This project will answer that question, preparing us for a larger research trial aimed at determining if SCCIP at Family Camp ('SCCamp") reduces cancer-related distress and the psychosocial burden of pediatric cancer. If beneficial, then we will seek out ways to bring SCCIP to other camps across the nation that offer Family Camp programs.
Project Update: Our efforts to adapt the Surviving Cancer Competently Intervention Program (SCCIP) for delivery in Family Camp have been hampered by the COVID-19 outbreak and a wildfire that devastated Camp Okizu, our community partner camp. We distilled options for delivering SCCIP at Family Camp, however, we could not trial these options because all camp sessions became virtual. On a positive note, virtual pediatric oncology camps were instituted by many Children’s Oncology Group – International camps. We therefore shifted our research to develop ways to deliver an eHealth version of SCCIP – eSCCIP – in a virtual Family Camp setting. We worked with caregivers and camp leaders to develop ideas for ways to deliver eSCCIP to groups of caregivers in virtual family camp and trialed these options to develop a feasible and acceptable way to deliver eSCCamp Caregiver Discussion groups as part of virtual Family Camp. With support from a Million Mile Researcher Award, we also recently successfully trialed our SCCamp intervention manual at an in-person Family Camp to move our work back to the community.
