My mother was the executive director for 32 years. And I started in junior high– I started coming to Cancer Care and her office was in Peter Smith, in a closet. What I remember most is her talking about paying bills for patients and arranging transportation and medicines and things like that. It was a very hands-on thing. She would be absolutely blown away with the immense organization that it is today.
My best friend from Rockport called me and she said, “Oh my gosh, you’ve got to go get a mammogram.” She said, “I’ve just been diagnosed with breast cancer, and you have to go right now.” Lo and behold, I had breast cancer.
I volunteered all my life. My mother did as well. I’ve always thought about ‘Oh those people that I am volunteering for, we’re gonna help those people.’ Well, all of the sudden, I was one of ‘those people.’ I remember having lunch with Deanna and Melanie and they said, “Well, how are you doing?” and I said, “Oh man, I am great. I’m just having– I’m good– I’m finished. I feel great. [crying] I am just horrible.” Anyway, Deanna whipped out her card and she said, “We have people that can help.”
You know, they just connect– they connect people to other agencies and I know what they can do. There are so many nonprofits in the community, and this is one that really and truly helps people.
by Alexis Allison, Fort Worth Report
September 21, 2021
The woman in the third car outside of Las Vegas Trail Rise food pantry wanted to talk. It was about 9 a.m. on a Tuesday, and she was waiting in a food line that wouldn’t start moving for another hour.
She’s lost people to cancer and COVID-19 as recently as last weekend, she told Carlene King, the community health worker standing outside her driver’s side window. The woman wept, and King took her number.
She said she would call her later and refer her to Cancer Care Services, the nonprofit that employs King as a liaison between the community and the company: “This is why I do what I do.”
The interaction took three minutes, maybe four, a moment of intimacy amid rolled-up windows and language barriers and people who didn’t want to chat about cancer while they waited for food.
A similar moment occurred two days before at a church across town. Fatu Holloway, a community health worker at Tarrant County Public Health, was giving a presentation for Birdville ISD about the county’s Women, Infants and Children program, which provides nutritional services to pregnant women, new moms and their children. A woman and her pregnant teenage daughter listened nearby, Holloway remembers.
The woman looked “lost,” she said. Afterward, they spoke. Holloway told her where to find baby things like diapers and car seats for free. The next day, the woman texted Holloway: She’d made an appointment for a car seat and wanted to let her know.
“I’m convinced that the (community health worker) role is the answer to every ill out there.”
A community health worker like King or Holloway may be the hand that pulls a person into a health care system for the first time. A certified, frontline worker who’s usually part of the community in which they work, they serve as liaisons, advocates, educators and, sometimes, someone in whom to confide. “We’re just that friendly bunch,” King said.
And, when it comes to the people most likely to experience poor health outcomes, community health workers may be key in helping reduce disparities.
“I’m convinced that the (community health worker) role is the answer to every ill out there,” Lisa Padilla, the board president of the Dallas Fort Worth Community Health Worker Association, said in a webinar hosted by Cancer Care Services last week.
The rise of community health workers
Community health workers have formally participated in health systems across the U.S. since at least the 1950s, according to the American Public Health Association.
In 2001, Texas was the first state to implement statewide training and credentialing standards for community health workers. In nearly 20 years, the number of community health workers in Texas has grown from fewer than 500 to around 4,000.
“Texas has a really robust and well-oiled system for educating our community health workers,” said Teresa Wagner, a community health worker instructor and an assistant professor at The University of North Texas Health Science Center.
That well-established system, she said, helped public health workers connect with hard-to-reach populations during the pandemic. “They’ve become a huge topic of conversation, especially because of the disparities that we’ve seen with COVID-19,” she said.
For decades, research around the country has addressed the role and efficacy of these health workers in expanding access to care and reducing disparities in their communities.
For example, in Detroit, Black and Hispanic adults with Type 2 diabetes had healthier hemoglobin A1c levels and more self-reported understanding of their disease after working with community health workers than the same group who didn’t, according to a randomized, controlled study about interventions for diabetes care.
When it comes to cancer care, like screenings, diagnostic procedures and wellness exams, people who interacted with community health workers or patient advocates were more likely to get screened and, for those with cancer, receive a definitive diagnosis within one year than those who didn’t. All but two of 24 studies in this systematic literature review reported statistically significant positive outcomes from these interventions.
Like King, Holloway spends her days meeting people in the community: Cataloguing resources, giving presentations, attending health fairs, visiting churches and parks and other local spaces.
She measures her own success in a simple way: if she sees someone join the WIC program after she connects with them in the community.
“Even if it’s one or two people, and they tell me how successful the program was, and their child graduated from the program, that is helpful,” she said.
As insiders who “look and sound like the people we work with,” community health workers help build the trust that can lead to these outcomes, Padilla said in the webinar.
They know how to address specific concerns from a specific community with personal experience — unlike a clinical provider who may not understand the living situation of their patients, Wagner, with The University of North Texas Health Science Center, said.
“Providers sometimes give people instructions, but they have no idea when those people get home, whether they have the money to buy that medication, whether they have transportation to go get that prescription, whether they have food to take the prescription with, whether they have electricity,” she said. “All of these barriers play a role in compliance.”
As a result, she said, a patient who doesn’t follow through with treatment may be labeled “non-compliant.”
“But it really isn’t that they are intentionally not being compliant; it’s that they don’t have the understanding, the culture or the resources to support what it is we’re asking them to do.”
Community health workers not only come from the communities they serve, they’ve often personally experienced the disease they’re trying to address. During the webinar, Padilla called it “lived experience.”
“That opens the door to additional knowledge about resources that are available,” she said. “We’ve been there — a lot of times — and done that.”
Becoming a community health worker in Texas
In 2007, King felt a lump. She was 45, a real estate broker and single mom to two daughters in high school. When her scans confirmed cancer, she waited until Christmas break to tell them.
Over the next year, she went through surgery and chemotherapy, lost her hair, and learned the intricacies of paying for cancer. When her first bill came, it was nearly $40,000, and King had no insurance.
So, she asked about options. She found government insurance for high-risk patients. She found a financial navigator at Moncrief Cancer Institute who helped her get her bills down. And at the end of the day, her surgeon, plastic surgeon and anesthesiologist agreed to provide her care at no cost.
“The moral of my story is to reach out and look for resources,” she said. “There’s people out there, they can’t pay for their medicine. They don’t have insurance. So because they don’t have insurance, they don’t look for resources … You don’t have to have insurance. You just have to open up and ask. Look for it.”
“The moral of my story is to reach out and look for resources,”
– Carlene King, community health worker at Cancer Care Services
During her treatment, a social worker kept telling her about Cancer Care Services, a local nonprofit that provides support to cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers for free. She was uninterested — she figured her income from her real estate work was too high. Then the woman told her about the massages.
“They actually try to figure out how to help you,” King said. And when you walk in, “everybody’s like family.”
Cancer Care Services ended up giving her massages for free — and paying her insurance premiums. She proclaimed their goodness in everyday conversations in the years that followed and, in 2019, they hired her as a community health worker.
King doesn’t usually share her cancer story with people — it’s not about her, she said, and her experience will differ from another person’s. But, she shares the resources she learned along the way. And if it weren’t for her cancer, she wouldn’t be doing the work she’s doing.
Fatu Holloway has been a community health worker since 2011. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)
Holloway grew up in Liberia in the 1960s. She remembers trailing the women in her community to the local market. She watched how they cared for neighborhood kids, even the children that weren’t their own. It was a “turning point” in her life, she said; before then, she’d wanted to be a nun.
She carried the communal spirit of her childhood — she had “lots of mothers and fathers growing up” — to northern California, where she moved to escape Liberia after the country’s coup in 1980.
As a young woman moving through the U.S. for the first time, she didn’t know how to navigate the health system when she became pregnant. A new friend who happened to be a midwife helped educate her, and that experience of advocacy still informs Holloway’s work.
“One of the things that I do and we do is advocate for people like me who didn’t know anything about the healthcare system and didn’t know anything about health,” she said.
How to become a community health worker in Texas:
In Texas, any resident who’s 16 or older can become a community health worker after completing 160 hours of training in the eight “core competencies,” things like the ability to teach and stay abreast of local resources. People who’ve accumulated at least 1,000 hours of community health work services within the past three years can also be certified based on their experience.
Holloway followed her then-husband to Texas and became a medical assistant. When the time came for her to choose nursing or something else, she knew she wanted to keep tabs on a family’s health after they left the hospital. She became a community health worker in 2011.
Like King, Holloway harnesses her training and her own experiences as an immigrant in a new system to inform her work. Still, she said, it’s never about her.
“I bring my story (to work), but I don’t let their story be my story, because everybody has their own story,” she said. “My story helps me to be able to be a better community health worker. Every day, I’m a work in progress.”
Alexis Allison is the health reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Her position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact her by email or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Volunteers make the world go ‘round! Let’s celebrate Nancy Love, who has been a wonderful Cancer Care Services volunteer for nearly 5 years, with her Cancer Care volunteer story! Nancy was born, raised, and currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas. She is a retired elementary math teacher who served over 30 years in FWISD. (We love our teachers!) When she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in December 2013, Nancy was overwhelmed by the word CANCER. Our counselor, Annie, helped Nancy cope with her cancer diagnosis and listened with a kind ear.
After retirement, Nancy decided to give back by volunteering for Cancer Care Services. She has loved helping cancer patients and their families through all of our services and events. Nancy remembers answering calls at the receptionist desk one day, and on the other end of the phone was a 25-year-old man who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He felt so lost and confused about how to navigate the medical system. Through tears, he admitted that he didn’t know where to get help. Nancy connected him with a social worker who helped him understand his situation and navigate his new diagnosis. Nancy played an important part in helping this young man find HELP and HOPE!
As a former patient herself, Nancy is empathetic to those who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Nancy says, “We all go through cancer experiences differently, but the one thing we all have in common is the ‘C’ word.”
Nancy is a proud volunteer and advocate for Cancer Care, so she encourages others to join her! For Nancy, the best part of volunteering is meeting AMAZING people along the way!
Thank you for being an inspiring volunteer, Nancy! Cancer Care Services is blessed to have you as part of our family! If you would like to become a volunteer like Nancy, please fill out our online Volunteer Application.
On April 24th, 2021 Cancer Care Services hosted our annual AYA Retreat: Camp Gold 2021, at Camp El Tesoro in Granbury, Texas. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the day was, what I like to call simply MAGICAL!
We had 20 participants in attendance, and that included their guests. We had two campers, plus their guests, who had to pull out last minute due to not feeling well because of chemo they had that week. Plus 9 volunteers from Cancer Care Services and Rutledge Cancer Foundation.
Staff members who joined us were Tori, Tamika, and Kayla, who did an EXCELLENT job leading our group discussion. Everyone enjoyed hiking, canoeing, kayaking, archery, the ropes course, group time, and meditation.
All day, every participant kept thanking us for making this event happen. Throughout the day, participants would express how glad they were to finally connect with fellow AYA’s (Adolescent and Young Adults) because like several of our clients, they spent most of 2020 in isolation and didn’t have the opportunity to meet others going through the same thing.
Several participants this year had either just wrapped up treatment, or are still on treatment, currently. They all connected with each other INSTANTLY and absolutely made friendships that will go on past this weekend (at dinner they were passing around a pen and paper to get everyone’s name and number like they were 10 at summer camp! So cute!).
If I could describe this weekend in one word, it would be THANKFUL! Thankful for the opportunities that 2021 is bringing us, and for being able to have in-person events again.
It was beyond evident that they are needed for our clients to feel a connection with others, now more than ever. Specifically, our AYA’s who crave connection with their peers. This is already a population that gets overlooked, and they definitely felt known, seen, heard, and loved this weekend!
For future Camps and Connect Events, please check out our events calendar!
Imagine the challenge of facing cancer, adjusting to new dietary restrictions, and finding the time and energy to cook for a family. Cancer Care’s August 2021 Connect Night featured Becca with Tarrant Area Food Bank, who taught our clients healthy and easy-to-make meals that the whole family can help cook!
Brianna, our child therapist, talked about how different types of foods can boost moods and calm anxiety. Then, the kids got to carefully slice cucumbers and strawberries to make a delicious cucumber and strawberry vinaigrette salad. Together, the families crafted their southwest pinwheels stuffed with chicken, spinach, and a mouth-watering cream cheese mixture. Yum!
Connect Night events build social connections by enjoying FUN activities together while teaching COPING skills. Each event has a therapeutic component combined with an engaging theme. Through the dedication of Cancer Care’s staff and volunteers, we have also made our Connect Nights more inviting and accessible for our Spanish-speaking families by offering Spanish translation.
In addition to making events more accessible, we have safely hosted every Connect Night in person this year, except for January! Clients were thankful for the commitment our staff, donors, and volunteers made toward creating a safe environment for people of all ages to form bonds within their own families and with others who are also dealing with cancer.
Supporters like youensure that those impacted by cancer in our community have FREE social, emotional, and educational programming to help them cope with cancer while expanding their support system. Connect Nights are just one of the many ways your donation brings hope and healing.
Donate early or on North Texas Giving Day, and you can become part of a regional campaign that uplifts the mission of Cancer Care Services. Spread the word by posting about your donation and using the hashtag #NTxGivingDay on social media!
Thank you for making sure that no one has to cope with cancer alone.
An incredibly brave and kind group of campers blessed us at CampCARE this year! Many campers experienced their first time catching a fish, riding a horse, and conquering the challenge course. Every child approached these experiences with enthusiasm and wonder, often surprising themselves with what they were capable of achieving.
New friends danced together, cheered each other on, and formed lasting bonds! And just as valuable as the friendships made were the skills learned during play therapy sessions held by Brianna, our child therapist. Brianna taught the campers ways to cope and share their emotions surrounding the cancer diagnosis of their loved one.
The children, volunteers, and staff brought the spirit of CampCARE to life through endless jokes, laughter, and SUPPORT. The last day of camp was full of bittersweet goodbyes… but there was also JOY because they will see their new friends again at Cancer Care!
Kaleigh and Aiden, two siblings whose mother is going through cancer treatment, made special connections with the other campers- and they learned healthy ways to process and express feelings with their mom. So CampCARE didn’t just change Kaleigh and Aiden’s lives, but their mother’s too. The family forged a new bond of HOPE and LOVE through learning how to cope TOGETHER.
Thank you to YMCA Camp Carter for providing a safe and fun environment for our clients, staff, and volunteers!
AND thank you to our amazing sponsors…
Jane Oderberg, Jason and Kelsey Pitts, Julie Vincent, Shaw’s Patio Bar & Grill, and Connecting for Conquerors for providing lunch to our hardworking campers and volunteers!
Our staff always makes us proud with their achievements and passion! Recently, Annie Presley, LCSW, became a Certified Grief Counseling Specialist (CGCS). Wow! The Certified Grief Counselor Specialist Evergreen Certification covers counseling for grief and loss through all stages of life.
Annie gained her Master’s in Social Work in 2005, became a clinical social worker in 2015, and has worked for Cancer Care Services as a counselor for over 15 years. Because Cancer Care Services is here to help EVERYONE impacted by cancer – Annie helps patients, caregivers, and family members cope with the emotional trauma caused by cancer.
She believes it is important to continue learning, especially about grief, because it is present in everyone’s life in various forms. Annie creates a safe place in her counseling sessions so her clients will feel comfortable working through their anxiety, loneliness, crisis situations, or grief. We are truly thankful to have staff like Annie, who are always looking for ways to better serve!
If you would like to receive counseling or other forms of support, please contact us at 817-923-0651 and ask to speak with a social worker email us at Info@CancerCareServices.org, or fill out our online form.
Cancer Care Services’ Connect program brings people together so they can give and receive peer support. In addition to the social benefits (which reduce loneliness and isolation), we also incorporate therapeutic activities to build coping skills. Consequently, each Connect program is fun AND healing! So unsurprisingly, May’s Connect Night featured music, laughter – and a bit of a ruckus!
May 2021 Connect Night
Nick, a new client who is a young adult, attended by himself and ended up at a table surrounded by five empty chairs. Megan, our Client Connection Manager (and social butterfly), never lets anyone sit alone! But while making her way over to Nick’s table, she realized he wasn’t there.
Instead, Nick had joined the kids in tossing a bright pink frisbee – and their smiles lit up the evening! The kids ran around, giggles filling the air, as Nick brought much-needed sunshine to the event (after a week of rain). Nick even blessed the parents by allowing them to enjoy a quick dinner without their kids.
Music Night inspired connections across all ages. Every client immersed themselves in music as they picked an emotion to add to the songs they sang. They later created their very own thunderstorm with their instruments!
Our volunteers warmly welcomed 32 individuals, including a new Spanish-speaking family! In the spirit of supporting a local business and neighbor, everyone was given a catered boxed meal from Carpenter’s.
“It was fun trying something new, and music night will definitely be back!” said Megan. She can’t wait for our next Connect event, so for information about attending or volunteering at future Connect Nights, please email Megan at Megan@CancerCareServices.org.
It was the year 2017 when I started to feel very tired all the time. I thought it was because I was pushing myself to do more at work. So when I renewed my insurance at work, I learned of the free mammogram program and made an appointment from there.
In April 2018, I took a mammogram and was contacted shortly afterward. I was given the diagnosis that every woman dreads the “C” word – Cancer. The cancer was found in my right breast. My shock was so severe that I couldn’t tell my family for two weeks. From there on, I didn’t know what to expect. I ran into what I call in my life a “bump.”
After hearing the news of my medical condition, although my family was as shocked as I was, they were also so very supportive. They began to help me out during my recovery in many different and convenient ways. My family and I didn’t have a lot of money, and we did a lot of praying for assistance and support. During one of my doctor’s visits, I was given a business card for Cancer Care Services. I made the call, and two days later, I received a call to come in for an interview. My daughter accompanied me to the interview, where I was informed that they could help me. The Lord answered my family’s prayers.
I had a certain day to start my treatment because I needed chemo and radiation. I didn’t know how to get the out-of-pocket money; we tried to get loans because we needed quite a bit of money for treatment. I called Cancer Care because I was a nervous wreck. I knew I needed help and didn’t know what I was going to do. I got a call back from Cancer Care, and they told me they had found a program that would pay my out-of-pocket. I tell you, I felt like a brand-new person that day because something just lifted off of me.
Cancer Care has done so many great and wonderful things for my family and me. They have provided financial and medical assistance and delivered delicious organic meals of my choice to my home so that I could have great healing meals. They also provided a great many other services such as:
A. Massage Therapy
B. Counseling Support
C. Transportation Support
D. Bible Classes
E. Survival Classes with Support and Activities
F. Cooking Classes
There are lots of fun activities for the whole family. Most of all, everyone there always has a big smile and is always ready to help in any way possible. Today I am doing very well. Thank God for my family and the Cancer Care Family for all the love and support that they still carry on today. Because of their support, I can stand proud and say I AM A CANCER SURVIVOR!
Cancer Care has taught me how to believe, have hope, and have faith not to give up. They have seasoned my life; just like cooking, you have to season it to get it right and keep working on it. They blessed me with the Cuisine for Healing. They bought me food, cards, and at Christmas time, they came knocking at my door with the little children to sing.
It is unbelievable how much Cancer Care has helped me. I have turned Cancer Care’s name to serval people, and they have had helped them. I do not mind telling anybody that Cancer Care is the number one caring organization, and they really do care.
I’ve been teaching for over 30 years and love what I do. I love the energy from students, the challenges teens bring, and the resilience they have when faced with challenges. Their examples actually helped me through a challenge that came my way in 2014 – my diagnosis of cancer.
The words “you’ve got cancer” are not words anyone wants to hear. From the initial disbelief to the tests to the plan of treatment to the resulting effects of surgery, chemo, radiation…cancer wants to strip you of everything you are and have.
From the obvious (does my insurance cover this); to the scary (will I survive); from the practical (how will I continue to pay my bills); to the emotional (am I going to lose my hair?); to the past (my mother didn’t survive this disease); to the future (I have so many things I still want to do)… each part of the cancer journey taught me about my own strengths and weaknesses, and taught me the importance of examples that have been set for me.
I had the example of my mother, who never complained publicly even when she was in pain. I had the example of my dad, who dropped everything to be with her throughout her journey. I had the example of friends who made phone calls, sent cards, and more. I had the example of doctors who were there night and day. I had the example of people who were there behind the curtains just in case.
And I had my students. I had students who gave me grace when I was trying to work 3 days after chemo. I had students who told me my head looked GOOD bald (I still prefer the shaved look, actually!) I had students who shared their stories of family cancer experiences and let me know they cared. I had teenage boys who sent me teenage boy jokes on chemo day that made me laugh (yes, laugh. They WERE naughty, but you can’t help but laugh).
And then there are the organizations that are there to support you such as Cuisine for Healing, the Texas Oncology network, and Cancer Care Services. Cancer Care Services has been a lifeline for friends going through this, for programs for youth, and for ongoing assistance for those who struggle. I have participated in National Cancer Survivors Day – a huge party designed to get people’s minds off the reality of cancer and on the reality of LIVING.
It was someone at Cancer Care Services who explained to me that one-day past diagnosis, I was and am a survivor. The journey ahead wasn’t going to be pleasant (she explained) but it didn’t matter; I was a survivor. I know that I can pick up the phone today and ask for help, and they will be there in whatever way they can. Cancer Care Services helps you deal with cancer, they offer care, and they provide or locate services for all who ask.
If you look at the Cancer Care Services calendar, there is everything; faith activities, massages, survivor resources, kid and youth resources, cooking, movies; camps for children and youth, you name it; there is support.
A final thought. While I was walking the halls after radiation (day after day after day after day) I had the opportunity to be blessed by artwork created by students from a local school. This year I had an opportunity to support that aspect of the Cancer Care Services’ program by bidding on and winning two pieces of artwork that had personal and special meaning to me in my life journey.
Those pieces will grace my walls at school as a daily reminder of Cancer Care and the people who care. There is beauty even in cancer; I learned life is a bit more precious when you know you’ve got examples and support in place, and when you get up each day a survivor.
