At Team Jak, we support children, teenagers, and young adults affected by childhood cancer. Our Children, Young People & Families team is here for them whether they’re undergoing treatment themselves, supporting a sibling, or navigating the illness of a parent or other close family member. All our services are designed to meet each individual’s needs in ways that are safe, welcoming, and age-appropriate.
Looking for support for your child, family, or want to refer someone you know? Please get in touch today.
For younger children (0-11) undergoing treatment, we offer a range of sessions to help them process their experiences, enjoy creative play, and simply be children in the midst of something daunting.
These include:
Bag of Worries: Our primary-age resource using therapeutic stories, creative play, and conversation to help children explore emotions in a gentle and engaging way.
Music Therapy: One-to-one or group sessions supporting emotional regulation, communication, and play through music and sound.
Family Sessions: All our group sessions, events, and outings are built around neutropenic-safe activities and catering designed to safely include children in treatment.
Counselling: We offer access to experienced, registered counsellors who provide tailored emotional support, helping children express feelings in ways that suit their age and needs.
Should your child need extra support, we can also offer personalised 1:1 sessions with our team or arrange additional counselling where appropriate.
Being a teenager is hard enough without the isolation, anxiety, and loss of normality that comes with a cancer diagnosis.
That’s why our Children, Young People & Families team provides dedicated support just for teens:
Teen Denners: Drop-ins with games, snacks, and space to chill in our Jak’s Dens teen zones.
Teen Events & Outings: We organise teens-only social events like visits to escape rooms, cinema trips, bowling, pizza nights, and pamper days. And we give them lots of space to bond, laugh, and just be themselves again.
Counselling: We offer access to experienced, registered counsellors who provide a safe, supportive space for teenagers to talk, process emotions, and work through challenges at their own pace. Sessions are tailored to each individual’s needs, and can for example address navigating treatment, recovery, or the impact of cancer on wider family life.
If a teenager needs extra support, we can also offer tailored 1:1 sessions with our team or organise additional counselling where appropriate.
Our support for young adults aged 18-25 recognises the unique challenges this age group faces, whether it’s continuing treatment, adjusting to life after cancer, or supporting a sibling, parent or other close family member through serious illness.
Our experienced Children, Young People & Families team provides young adults with the space to reflect, connect, and build community through the following:
One-to-One Support: Tailored emotional and practical help, with regular check-ins to explore worries, life transitions, and the pressures of early adulthood. Some of the challenges we help young adults manage — alongside treatment or recovery — include navigating college or university, work, and relationships.
Events and Social Meetups: All young adults are welcome at our teen and family events, and we can also offer bespoke 1:1 sessions with our team or arrange additional counselling where appropriate.
When a child or young person’s sibling, close family member or friend is diagnosed with cancer, it can turn their world upside down. We’re here to make sure no one in the family feels forgotten or left out. These are our Super Siblings.
Emotional Support: We offer counselling, music therapy, and creative tools like our Bag of Worries to help children and teens process complex emotions in a safe, age-appropriate way.
Super Sibs Sessions: Open not just to siblings but to other affected children, teens and young adults as well, our Team Jak Super Sib Sessions include group outings, pamper sessions and creative activities. Our aim is to help all those affected by cancer feel seen, supported and better understood.
School Support: If your child is struggling with concentration, anxiety or showing changes in behaviour, we can liaise with their school to offer targeted emotional support and guidance.
Family Sessions: All our Jak’s Den activities and wider events are designed with the whole family in mind. We offer neutropenic-safe environments and emotional support for everyone, not just the child in treatment.
We provide emotional, social and practical support to children & young people with cancer, their families, friends and those bereaved
