When a child's diagnosed with cancer, the focus is rightly on treatment, care and hope. But behind that is another story – of parents and carers carrying fear, exhaustion and uncertainty, often with little space for their own mental wellbeing. During my own son’s treatment, someone supporting our family asked me a question that stayed with me: “Who cares for the carers?” Too often, parents’ and carers’ emotional wellbeing is overlooked. Life during treatment is relentless, and when treatment ends, families can be expected to return to normal while still carrying its emotional impact. For bereaved families, grief can affect every aspect of life.
Through our work with families and community survey findings here at Solving Kids’ Cancer UK (SKC UK), a clear support gap emerged: parents and carers often struggled to access mental health support when they needed it most. While the child’s needs understandably remain the priority during and after treatment, parents’ and carers’ emotional wellbeing can receive less attention. In response, with generous support from TNL Community Fund, we developed a compassionate coaching programme to provide tailored support to empower parents and carers to navigate their experiences with greater resilience and confidence. Focus groups with post-treatment and bereaved parents, held in consultation with our charity partner Life After Cancer, helped shape the programme – grounding it in lived experience and designing it around parents’ and carers’ needs. To respond to these needs, two bespoke programmes were developed – one for parents post-treatment and one for bereavement. These free, confidential online group sessions run weekly for six weeks, with each two-hour session facilitated by professionally trained SKC UK life coaches with lived experience. Coaches remain available for an hour after each session, and participants receive a wellbeing pack on registration.
Post-treatment support
The post-treatment coaching programme supports parents as they adjust after treatment, with a focus on improving emotional wellbeing and day-to-day functioning. Over six weeks, sessions explore topics such as re-establishing routines, managing anxiety, strengthening family relationships, promoting self-care, building peer support, and setting future goals.
Bereavement support
The bereavement coaching programme offers a safe and compassionate space for parents to explore grief, share experiences and develop practical coping strategies. Across the sessions, parents reflect on themes such as self-care, relationships, work, purpose, and honouring the memory of their child, while also building resilience and reducing isolation. Building on the positive impact of last year’s bereavement coaching programme, we’ve extended this by working in partnership with Alice’s Arc Children’s Cancer Charity so that more bereaved parents and carers can benefit from this support. Prioritising the wellbeing of parents and carers is a fundamental part of trauma-informed family support. Whether families are adjusting to life after treatment or living with bereavement, coaching offers a compassionate space to process experiences and build resilience. If we’re truly asking, “Who cares for the carers?”, the answer must be that we all do – by listening, responding and recognising that their wellbeing matters, too.
