„Your child has cancer.“

With this diagnosis for many families a world comes crashing down.

While anxiety, helplessness and the feeling of being overwhelmed still dominates every thought, in most cases it is necessary to start treatment right away. What used to be everyday life has to be reorganized entirely: during the stressful treatment that often lasts months or even years one parent usually dedicates itself completely to taking care of the sick child. The other parent has to juggle maintaining the family's financial situation and take care of siblings – all between hospital stays, taxi rides, blood counts and outpatient appointments.

Even after therapy a lot of families struggle to find their way back into (what used to be) normality. One constant remainder is fear: fear that one's child cannot be cured by the treatment, fear of cancer relapse, fear of the unknown. Every family has to find a unique and individual path to deal with upcoming obstacles.

„We cannot walk that path for the families, but we can guide them along their way“, describes Markus Wulftange, assistant director of the registered society Elternhilfe für krebskranke Kinder Leipzig, his daily work.

The „Elternhilfe“ was founded in 1990 to support families with a child, adolescent or young adult diagnosed with cancer. Over the years what was once a self-organized initiative of affected parents grew into a multiprofessional Team, assisting families from the very first day at the children's cancer unit all the way to follow-up care.

With an increasing number of staff the variety of offers has grown tremendously: inpatient as well as outpatient psychosocial care, offering an apartment for parents whose child is hospitalized, sports- art- and music therapy, palliative care, support for the patients' siblings as well projects for bereaved parents. We think it is essential to focus on the entire family as every member is greatly affected by the disease.

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