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In-Person Open Studio Groups for Children, Adolescents & Young Adults

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This year, Cancer Lifeline is launching a series of IN-PERSON arts-and-activity based groups that are designed, in developmentally appropriate ways, to support emotional processing, self-reflection, and within-group sharing, connected to cancer experiences. Facilitated by our resident Clinical Program Director, who is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (by the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association), each week in the series will focus on a specific relevant topic. The groups will be co-facilitated by an Antioch art therapy intern doing her practicum with Cancer Lifeline.

Called Open Studio Groups because of the variety of arts-and-activities available throughout the series, one Saturday of each month (starting at the end of January) focuses on kids with a cancer diagnosis, and the other Saturday of each month focused on siblings and other family members of someone in the family with a cancer diagnosis. While it is not essential to attend each of the Saturdays of the applicable series, each group does build on the prior group’s focus. Topics covered through engagement in arts-and-activities may include, but are not limited to; feelings connected to cancer, ways of adapting to life changes connected to treatment, maintaining family cohesion and individual identities for all family members, individual and family coping resources, self-and-family advocacy for social support, changes to identity and sense of connection with peers and loved ones, post-treatment adjustments and finding one’s path, and building resilience in the face of uncertainty.

For Patients with a Cancer Diagnosis: Saturdays, 2/24, 3/30 & 4/27

For Those who Have a Family Member with Cancer: Saturdays, 2/10, 3/9, 4/13