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CEW’s Cancerandcareers Program: An Across
the Board Success Story
by Stacey Resnikoff
You’re great at your job and have a fulfilling
career. Then one day — out of nowhere and without getting
a vote — you’re told to do another job instead.
This is how many professional women feel when cancer
first enters their lives. In addition to concerns about health,
patients fear that the fight against cancer will replace the work
they love, creating feelings of helplessness and loss. Yet a program
and Web site called “cancerandcareers” (cancerandcareers.org) — launched
October 2001 by Cosmetic Executive Women — is changing this
perception.
By providing personal tips, day-to-day workplace
advice, and step-by-step action plans, cancerandcareers is showing
women that they can continue to work effectively during treatment.
Acting as a steadying force during difficult moments, the program
reinforces the professional savvy and can-do attitude that makes
these women so desirable to employers in the first place.
Advice to Live and Work By
So what is cancerandcareers all about? In a word: answers. Cosmetic
Executive Women (CEW) President Carlotta Jacobson says five female members
of the CEW board of directors who had been diagnosed with cancer came up with
the idea when they found few insights into the issues on their minds.
“(They) felt that while there were many resources
out there for women with cancer, none addressed the issue of combining
work with treatment,” says Jacobson. So the board members,
along with fellow cancer survivors, began cataloging the many questions
that had dogged them: “’How do I tell my boss? What
will coworkers think? How do I balance work and treatment? What
can I expect from my employer? What do other women do?’”
These questions served as the “framework” of
the Web site, according to Jacobson. “We then gathered a
host of experienced health and medical writers to flesh out the
details.”
Sections on the site — such as Taking Charge,
Paperwork, Sharing the News, Working Thru It, and Powerful Patient — offer
real-world solutions through a series of detailed articles. For
instance, Sharing the News helps women decide not only whether
to tell, but also provides hard-won experience on how, who, what,
and when. In Working Thru It, valuable insights are shared on everything
from Working Through Treatment and Traveling With Cancer to Taking
Time Off and Handling Discrimination.
Charts and Checklists — another in-depth resource — gives
women a quick-linking “virtual tool kit…to map your
progress and navigate your way through the system — at work
and at the hospital.” And Keeping Up Appearances — a
section on dealing with the cosmetic side-effects of cancer — naturally
includes information on Look
Good…Feel Better, too.
Attracting a Wide Audience
The cancerandcareers Web site team, lead by Jacobson and editor-in-chief Kate
Sweeney, made a conscious effort to present subjects with an “empowering,
positive, conversational, sometimes even funny” approach in order to
make the information more accessible. And not only cancer patients are interested.
“We initially thought our audience would be
just women with cancer, but it quickly became apparent as we began
talking to companies, doctors, experts, et cetera, that employers,
managers, coworkers and caregivers needed information, too,” says
Jacobson. “Many of the companies we've spoken to have confessed
that sometimes they are at a loss on how to support an employee
with cancer…For many managers this is the first time they've
had to deal with something like this.”
As a result, cancerandcareers is currently expanding
its resources for employers and mangers through a program called “Managing
Through Cancer” to launch in fall 2003. Supported by a grant
from Avon Products, Inc., the initiative will include corporate
recognition awards, online content and tools, print publications,
and an “aspirational best practices” list for companies
in need of guidance.
Offline and Off the Charts
With the “overwhelming support of the entire beauty industry” (including
founding sponsors Avon and Roche and numerous other corporate benefactors),
individual donors, the CEW Foundation*, and a dedicated board of directors,
cancerandcareers is growing fast — and turning heads. What was initially
a Web site idea has expanded to include educational materials, including posters,
postcards, and a 66-page workbook for doctors and cancer centers that will
soon be translated into Spanish. Jacobson and her team are energized by the
enthusiastic response.
“The idea has really resonated with people,” she
says. “When we first began the project, we never dreamed
that in two years, we'd be a multi-media, multi-lingual resource — but here
we are.”
*The CEW Foundation, which supports causes for women,
has assisted Women in Need, Women’s Venture Fund, and Prep
for Prep; cancerandcareers is its first independent initiative.
Visit the CEW Web
site for more information.
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