Laura Crane Youth Cancer Trust has rebranded as Project Youth Cancer, to mark the charity’s shift to increase mental health support for young people with cancer.
Project Youth Cancer aims to position itself as a leading support organisation for young people with cancer in the UK, and has launched a counselling service to for young cancer patients.
This new service is available to young people with cancer throughout Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, with the support of Leeds Building Society.
Established in 1996, the charity supports 47 specialist hospitals throughout the UK that treat teenage cancer, providing support mechanisms, such as technology, to improve time spent on hospital wards.
The charity’s chief executive Pam Thornes said: “We had already shifted our focus to include mental wellbeing a couple of years ago, so it felt like a logical step to completely reassess how we supported our patients and see if we could help fill the void that existed in mental health support.”
Decision to change the name ‘a very difficult one’
Helen Mervill, head of operations at the charity, which has an annual income of £167,000, told Civil Society News that conversations around the rebrand started in the summer of last year.
“Our charity, like many others, was shaken by the pandemic and left us questioning our ‘normal’; the way we work, our values and purpose and most prominently the charity’s future.”
She added: “The biggest realisation we had during the branding conversations was that we were not truly putting the young people we support at the heart of everything we did, and we needed that to change.
“We started involving young people in the conversations we were having about the charity and the branding process, asking them what appealed to them, how they perceived the charity as it was and what they would like to see change.”
Mervill said the decision to change the name “was a very difficult one”.
“For me personally, Laura Crane was a childhood friend and her tragic death at 17 was the reason the charity started. Laura’s story will always be a part of the charity’s, but other young people’s stories are also important and our focus must be on the young people with cancer that we support today and in the future,” she said.
The charity worked with Frank & Alex Brand Strategy who gave their time and expertise for free. Mervill added the full brand strategy and rebrand would ordinarily cost upwards of £2,000.
“The new website has also been donated free of charge by Forty4Three. We are incredibly fortunate to receive this level of support from our generous contributors,” she said.
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