Be Child Cancer Aware

Our mission is to provide information in order to raise awareness of cancer in children, teenagers and young adults through the Be Child Cancer Aware campaign.

Cancer in children and young people is more common than you think. There is a severe lack of awareness, and young lives are being lost due to late diagnosis.

The Be Child Cancer Aware campaign will raise awareness of childhood cancers in the following ways...

Awareness of signs and symptoms

We are all told that early diagnosis of cancer in adults saves lives – it is the same principle for children and young people. However, in order to gain an early diagnosis we must first be aware of the symptoms of cancer in children and teenagers. Our child cancer information pages provide details of the main signs and symptoms.

Awareness through schools information programme

Our schools programme will ensure that all parents will be given information about the signs and symptoms of childhood cancer. We have produced a 'Signs and Symptoms' awareness card, and the first delivery of 1,000,000 cards to 6,000 schools took place in November 2010. The awareness cards will be given to all parents of school age children. However, there is the unfortunate side of this programme which is cost, and we will need to fund it through fundraising activities. There are 12,000,000 cards to be printed and delivered to 35,000 schools.

Awareness with GPs

In particular, GPs need to be made more aware of the symptoms of various cancers. We need to ensure that every GP follows the guidelines contained in the NICE guidelines for cancer referral. Child cancer referral advice is viewable from page 42 onwards.

The symptoms of many child and teenage cancers are very often dismissed as usual ailments. If a child or teenager’s symptoms continue with no satisfactory explanation, then a referral must be made.