Category: From the Desk of

From the Desk of is a POV written by Cancer Care’s staff, volunteers, donors, and board members.

From the Desk of a Social Worker

Social Worker taking notes

From the Desk of…

a Cancer Care Services’ Social Worker

A day in the life of a social worker at Cancer Care Services is filled with many different roles and responsibilities. No two days are exactly alike, but each day we are focused on providing care and support to the people we are here to serve. While our team of clinic-based social workers operates within the parameters of a specific, off-site clinic setting, the social workers in our building on S Henderson Street serve a broad spectrum of individuals from our community who have been affected by cancer.

Our community social workers typically spend the first few moments in the building preparing for the day. Everyone has their own process, but in addition to tending to basic administrative chores, this time is meant to put the social worker in a healthy state of mind to connect with clients. Sometimes social workers even jam out to action movie soundtracks, but those are a rare breed.

Prep time serves another practical purpose: we don’t begin reaching out to clients until after 9:00 AM, in order to give patients sufficient time to wake and prepare for whatever their day may hold. These calls continue conversations about previously identified needs or concerns; we want clients to feel they are kept current, and not like they are having to wait on responses to questions. After every call is completed on behalf of the patient, the social worker documents the exchange with a note to the client’s file. Detailed documentation is an essential element of professional social work.

Typically, the social worker will then move on to Intake phone calls. This is the first step in bringing a client on board to receive services from our agency. Many routine questions are asked in order to assess the client’s physical, mental, and even financial condition and begin to formulate a care plan for them. Not surprisingly, many notes are added to the file. Altogether, this process takes roughly an hour for each new client.

Once Intake is completed, then the social worker schedules a time to meet the new client in person, preferably, to discuss in more detail the needs of the client as well as those of his or her entire household. At Cancer Care Services, the cancer patient is not the only type of client. The husband, wife, child, parent, and any caregiver – can all be clients.

The social worker will spend time throughout their day researching and attempting to connect these people with the resources they need – whether it’s financial help, counseling, food assistance, proper treatment, prescription medications, housing, car repairs, social connections, medical supplies, nutrition supplements, burial assistance, and sometimes even mattresses. Basically, anything that is a concern or need of the cancer patient’s household becomes a priority of the social worker.

The social worker will also spend time throughout the day receiving phone calls from dietitians, nurses, and other medical staff. These medical professionals are close with their cancer patients and are a key link in the chain of caring for and providing assistance to our clients. Each one of these professionals works within the guidelines of the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which keeps patient information confidential.

Social workers are constantly sending and receiving order forms to provide medical assistance for the patient in these cases. For instance, if a patient needs colostomy supplies, then a nurse will send over an order form, and the social worker then searches online for the specific supplies and presents their selections to a supervisor for approval.

Cancer Care Services accepts any cancer patient no matter what phase of treatment – or survivorship – they are in. We know any help that can be provided goes a long way for our patients, and we are proud to play a vital part in that process.

If you need help, fill out our online form to get in contact with a Cancer Care team member.

Makeup and Memories

Chroma Services client

From the Desk of…

Michael Sturns and Meredith Villachica

 Chroma Services
www.chromaservicestexas.com

Being in the salon business allows us to talk with and get to know so many great people. Each person has a different story, different successes, and different challenges. Over time, many clients come to feel like old friends, people we’ve known to weather life’s ups and downs.

Oftentimes, we get the privilege of helping them look their best as they celebrate milestones, like holidays, graduations, or marriages, for instance. But sometimes, it’s the greater gift that we get to help them when they’re feeling down, as they come to the salon not always feeling like their best. So great is it that something as simple as a haircut or new makeup can make someone feel so special on the inside as well as the outside.

But you know it and we know it: fighting cancer can lead to days when you feel more than just down.

We don’t claim to be able to make everything better, but our amazing team of Hair Stylists and Makeup Artists do what we can to transform feelings of depression, lethargy, anxiety, and self-doubt into moments of beauty, confidence, and encouragement.

How do we do this? When a client walks through our doors, we see the person, not the patient, and we proceed to pamper them through a beautiful makeover inside our one-of-a-kind Mobile Salon. With love in our hearts, our service to each client is totally personalized and nothing is left out! We call this the “Chroma Experience”!

Every three months, we have the opportunity to provide MAKEUP & MEMORIES for Cancer Care Services’ clients. Just recently, as part of their very special Valentine’s Dinner (2/09/19). It was the fourth time we’ve come out to a Cancer Care event and each time we are touched by and grateful for the opportunity to interact with each person there. We leave always wanting to come back and do more – and we plan to.

We are 100% committed to our partnership with Cancer Care Services and we certainly share the mission of the agency, doing as much as we can to reduce the impact of cancer in our community, by coming together and changing lives, one moment at a time.

Our motivation to do this began almost a decade ago. It is the story of a particular client that our co-owner, Meredith Villachica-Hood, has serviced for many years, during which time, Meredith had witnessed her difficult battle with cancer. Although her strength and beauty continued to be remarkable, year after year, she continued to grow back and then lose her hair all over again, during multiple years of chemotherapy.

This inspired Meredith – and in turn, all of us at Chroma Services – to do whatever we could to turn the unfortunate circumstance of losing hair, due to cancer, into an agenda that any person battling or overcoming cancer may come through our doors and walk out with their head held high…we want to make sure each person sees themselves to be just as beautiful as we see them!

We work with hospitals, nurses, doctors, and caregivers. Our shared goal is to make the traumatic experience of hair loss due to cancer and treatment not one of despair, but something liberating – so that each courageous soul can walk down the street with their head held high!

A percentage of every service done at Chroma Services is donated quarterly to a Cancer Charity or Non-Profit Organization. Together, we will eliminate Cancer!

From the Desk of Jane Oderberg

Jane Oderberg

From the Desk of…

Jane Oderberg

Cancer Care Services’ Retired Program Director, Board Member, Volunteer, & Donor

As a long-time professional geriatric social worker in 2005, I attended a women’s networking meeting. While catching up with a friend, she shared the fact that an employee at Cancer Care Services was going to be out on medical leave, and she needed to hire a part-time social worker for the interim. I told her that I would be interested in applying, so long as I could do the work and still care for my granddaughters. Well…as they say (whoever “they” are!), the rest is history!!

I started as a 20-hour/week home visit social worker, which I enjoyed very much. I maintained a presence in the healthcare field and continued to attend many networking meetings. I was repeatedly surprised when asked what I was doing currently, and I answered “working part-time at Cancer Care”, how few people knew what Cancer Care Services was or that it even existed! I must admit that until I started working there, I didn’t know Cancer Care did either! But once I knew, boy, was I proud to spread the word.

When the social worker who was out on medical leave returned, we job-shared for several months. Then the CEO came to me and asked that I come to his office; my co-workers teased that I was being called to the “principal’s office” for some behavior issue (like speaking my mind!). Instead, he informed me that the program director had resigned and asked if I was interested in taking on the position full-time, with responsibility for all client programming, supervising the social work staff and interns, supporting the Board of Directors, and “other duties as assigned”!

It didn’t take long, really just a year, for my relationship with one of the finest and oldest non-profits in Fort Worth to take root and begin to grow. I loved my job of helping clients and families navigate the maze that is cancer and all the ramifications that go along with it. I could leave work knowing I made a difference in people’s lives on a daily basis.

The staff was wonderful…more like family, really. We supported each other in good times as well as bad. It was a pleasure going to work every day. I also learned from our clients how cancer impacted their lives and how much they appreciated all that Cancer Care did for them. I have never felt as fulfilled by my work as I did while at Cancer Care Services.

Then and ever since, I have made it my mission to educate as many people as possible about the work Cancer Care does, making sure people know how to refer clients to the programs.

In July 2016, I retired from my position – after more than eleven years. Who would have believed that my part-time gig would last so long? But my connection with Cancer Care Services wasn’t over; it simply changed. I became a speaker’s bureau volunteer, and I pledged financial support through the Legacy of Hope Giving Society.

From these new vantage points, I have enjoyed watching the growth of the organization as it works to meet the needs of more and more people in our community. It felt good to be contributing still to something so positive. Then I looked at it from another angle.

A few months ago I was asked if I would consider serving as a member of the Cancer Care Services’ Board of Directors. Thinking it would be interesting to now see the agency’s operations from the perspective of governance and strategy – informed by a deep understanding of our client’s perspective, I said yes. So in a few weeks’ time, I’ll begin my term of service, continuing to support my favorite organization as a volunteer… an advocate… a donor… and once upon a time a good while ago, as a part-time employee.

Each experience has shown me in different ways the same thing: the quality of care and commitment to service offered daily by this organization to its clients. I hope to continue to contribute to its impact for many more years to come.