LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance Conference and The Blatant No-Show Big “No Surprise”
Submitted by The Stupid Cancer Blog.
I had recent pleasure of attending and actively participating in the planning for the 3rd annual LIVESTRONG Young Adult Alliance conference in Austin, TX.
For those of you out there who don’t know. the LSYAA is a professional society of nonprofit organizations like i2y who all share in the collective goal of improving survival and advocating on behalf of all young adults affected by cancer. It’s an incredible group of really smart folks, mostly Founders, Executive Directors and Program Managers from nearly all of the young adult organizations listed on our website. Names you’ve all come to know and love like Planet Cancer, First Descents, Camp Mak-A-Dream. Fertile Hope, Cancer Care, The SAMFund, Tamika & Friends, The Ulman Cancer Fund, The Yellow Umbrella, Rise Above It, MyLifelIne and HopeLab. You’d also be surprised to find out that many of the big box cancer orgs are also starting to jump on the young adult bandwagon with groups participating such as The Lymphoma Research Foundation, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Susan G. Komen – yes you heard right – Komen, The Oncology Nursing Society, The Association of Pediatric Hematology Oncology Nurses, APOSW and others.
Not to mention a slew of great hospitals and cancer centers, all of whom are tackling the young adult issue hard, right on the ground. Centers like CHOC, DFCI, MSKCC, MD Anderson, Vanderbilt-Ingram and U Pittsburgh.
Yet surprising, one particular organization was noticably absent from this conference. Can you guess who I am talking about? Perhaps it should come as no surprise but on the other hand, one might expect the “global leader in the fight against cancer” to be on the ball, in sync with what’s actually happening on the ground and committed to the entire continuum of quality care. Well, The American Cancer Sobriety was not there. Now I’m slowly learning not to take such a negative attitude towards ACS as I have come to the conclusion that they will be the source of their own demise.
They have done remarkable things and will always be the organization everyone first things about when they hear the word cancer. However, their noticeable absence from the LSYAA conference was, at least to me, a perfunctory slap in the proverbial face to the entire young adult social movement. That’s just my opinion but you can come to your own conclusions so long as you agree with me on all accounts.
But I digress. Even sans ACS, the YAA is truly and remarkably an assembly of the best of the best minds who are all collectively working together – the wisdom of community so to speak – to address how we can all move forward to advance the cause while all still remaining differentiated and connected.
Lots of good things came out of this third meeting, including the fact that the LAF has decided to commit some actual funding to the YAA to advance some of the charters such as public service announcements, biological review and physician education. It is my honor to be a part of this effort and, like everyone else, i2y stands committed to this body of leadership. You will definitely be hearing more about the LSYAA in coming months and years. They are, in essence, the mature governing body of the movement operating behind the scenes on everyone’s behalf. Like your classy uncle that you don’t mind coming to Thanksgiving dinner. Where as, perhaps, the ACS is house crashing Kato Kailin freeloader who only shows up when they need something for like money, food or a bone marrow match.
All in all, the state of young adult advocacy is good so all of you out there in listener land can rest assured that progress is being made not just on the ground with all of i2y’s remarkable growth and prowess, but behind the scenes as well with this professional society of leadership all working on your behalf – that is, with the exception of The American Cancer Sobriety. Oh ACS, is there no end to your fabulously convoluted antics? Thanks again for nothing.
