Welcome to Ontario Parents Advocating for Children with Cancer’s website.  In this website you will be able to find information on resources for families and parents of children with cancer. 

Message from our OPACC President/Chair Dave Munro
A lot of time has passed since we sent out our latest email blast and we apologize for not keeping better attention to some of the finer details of keeping all our parents and members informed.  OPACC is 100% volunteer run and each Director lives the reality that OPACC is a big part of.

We worked hard in partnership with the Childhood Cancer Foundation to put in a proposal to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for a grant to help where it is needed most, on the front lines with a Parent Liaison, to advocate for families of children with cancer.  We weren’t successful in that attempt the first round through but we learned some very valuable lessons.  OTF funds are not the easiest to get and this was our first time so we are preparing for another try and will be writing a new OTF application soon.


At our recent board meeting we talked about getting some infrastructure funding to help build the organization.  We are receiving funding for the Parent Liaison program from Lainie’s Angels http://www.lainiesangels.com and we need to focus on the capacity building piece using OTF funding when it is granted. Other avenues of funding are also being looked at, including corporate and private donations.

We have been trying to work with Sick Kids to bring back a parent support group.  For a number of families who have had a long childhood cancer journey, they can remember a time when there was a Parent Advocate in place.  This individual was a dedicated Mom whose child had been diagnosed with a very rare cancer and had walked in those very unpopular shoes.  She was only one Mom but she worked as though there were a whole team of folks.  She would most often work at Sick Kids at least thirty hours a week or more ... all of them simply because she cared ... and every hour was unpaid; she volunteered her time freely.  The position was so important to the Hematology/Oncology Program it was mentioned in their accreditation process and the program was used as a model at BC Children’s Hospital.

Although this Parent Advocate role should have been made a paid position, due to budgetary reasons the funding was not made available by Sick Kids.  Overwork and lack of recognition resulted in this key volunteer resigning her volunteer position.  OPACC believes in the need for this position and has been working hard on reestablishing a paid Parent Liaison role at Sick Kids.  OPACC has the funding available to support this investment in our families. Most recently we have worked with the Sick Kids team to develop a parent survey that is now being distributed at the Hem/Onc clinic.  We hope the results will reinforce what we know to be true…the need for this type of support is great.

Some exciting events have happened in the Ontario Hem/Onc world. A new POGO Clinic opened in February at Southlake Regional Health Centre in Newmarket and is already seeing a number of families.  It has been personally gratifying for me as I am an employee of Southlake and was involved in helping the parties come together.  OPACC looks forward to working with Southlake to ensure the families served by the clinic will have access to some parent networks.

OPACC recently met with the Coast to Coast Foundation.  This foundation is focused simply on raising funds to support agencies that directly provide services to those affected by childhood cancer. One of their largest recipients are the kid’s cancer camps. In our discussions with them they see OPACC as an agency that they would like to partnership with and support financially. The best thing about this organization is that 100% of the money they raise at their events goes to the charities directly.  We will work in partnership with Coast to Coast and Lainie’s Angels to provide these value added services OPACC can provide.