The Milton Marks Neuro-Oncology Family Camp is an annual weekend retreat created for families with children living at home, where one parent has a malignant brain tumor. In addition to providing the families with respite, the camp strengthens community and connection in an emotionally supportive environment. All patients are in the care of the Neuro-Oncology Service at The University of California, San Francisco Medical Center. Camp takes place at the Walker Creek Ranch in Petaluma, California.
There is no cost to families to attend.
WHY A FAMILY CAMP?
A weekend retreat can provide a chance for a family to have fun together, in a natural environment, where basic needs are handled for them. There are many engaging activities for patients and kids so that caregivers can have some time on their own or share time with other individual family members. Family camp allows all members of the family to temporarily escape the daily burdens of the illness.
Family camp gives isolated family members an opportunity to connect to and draw support from a community of others with similar experiences. Patients and families can have a better sense of the impact of the illness on themselves, their spouses and their children, can participate in therapeutic activities together, and attend workshops that can help give them tools to cope and lessen the stressful impact on their children.
For the healthcare team, spending a weekend with families outside of the clinic or hospital setting provides greater insight into each family’s unique needs and coping styles. The healthcare team can then craft or modify the family’s individual care plan accordingly.
WHY FOCUS ON FAMILIES OF BRAIN TUMOR PATIENTS?
The diagnosis of a brain tumor is often associated with significant stress, loss, and isolation, in addition to cognitive changes and other symptoms unique to this patient population. While support groups for brain tumor patients and their families currently exist in many communities, the Milton Marks Neuro-Oncology Family Camp represents an unprecedented effort to address the needs of brain tumor patients and their families that reach beyond medical therapy.
Like many families with a critically ill parent, families struggle to adapt to the patient’s medical needs and the loss of income and shifting roles that come with serious illness. Families of brain tumor patients often must additionally cope with having an adult family member who may have substantial difficulties communicating, putting their thoughts together, and making decisions or judgement calls.
Often the healthy parent must assume more intensive caregiving duties — both for the patient and for their children, as well as adapting to a new emotional reality, where the partner may be different in ways that feel difficult to understand. Everyone in the family, most especially children, may find it hard to adapt and to speak about what is happening and what may be down the road for all of them.
Milton Marks Neuro-Oncology Family Camp
c/o Community Initiatives
1000 Broadway, Suite 480
Oakland, California 94607
[email protected]
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