This chapter is focused on terminal cancer and bereavement. A full chapter is devoted to this topic as families who experience bereavement have very specific needs. Healthcare practitioners need to reflect on their own perceptions and opinions about death as this can have an impact on their ability to support children and families experiencing death from parental cancer. The chapter encourages sharing information with children and families about their options to enable them to make their own decisions and feel empowered at a vulnerable time. Findings are conflictive, some describe negative outcomes associated to maternal cancer such as conflict and stress, while others do not experience emotional or behavioural issues. Healthcare practitioners play a crucial role in supporting children and families as they have a close relationship and families trust them at this time. The chapter includes ways to support children and families at the time of parental death and bereavement for cancer.

This chapter presents a case for actively involving children and young people in the experience of parental cancer, facilitating, and encouraging open and honest communication and age-appropriate provision of information. The voices of children and young people should be listened to and carefully considered. More child friendly spaces are needed. Healthcare practitioners play a crucial role involving children and young people, inviting their questions, getting to know and understand their individual needs and how to respond appropriately to them. Families can benefit from emotional, and family support early in the cancer diagnosis to prevent long term negative effects or issues in the future.

This chapter is focused on understanding the experience of children and young people. It explores how the meaning of the illness shapes the experiences. The findings on the impact of parental cancer, according to research, has mixed findings. Cancer research methodologies are varied and therefore comparisons between studies is difficult. Children and young people can experience positive outcomes from parental cancer, such as maturity and personal growth, not only negative ones which have also been reported by the literature such as depression and anxiety. Different factors including illness stage, age, sex, coping skills, previous knowledge and relationships with professionals can impact parental cancer.

This chapter describes cancer from a chronological perspective to increase understanding, even if cancer does not necessarily follow a ´predictable´ course. The cancer stages: diagnosis, treatment and recovery have characteristics of their own and different reactions expected from children and young people along these stages. Early intervention with children and families can prevent long term sequels. More knowledge and rigorous research is needed to understand the impact of cancer over time and how to support children and families which experience fear of recurrence.

The chapter is a compilation of international research on the impact of parental cancer, as well as the policy and practice which have an impact on how children, young people and families experience parental cancer. More research is needed in different areas of the world as well as more culturally sensitive information is also needed. Some areas of the world lack appropriate databases and policy to understand the magnitude of parental cancer but also to be able to provide culturally sensitive supports. Cultural aspects such as socio-economic backgrounds, parenting practices and family characteristics are cultural determinants of cancer. The book makes the case for healthcare practitioners to have more culturally sensitive practices to support individual families and their needs.

This chapter is focused on self-care for health care practitioners. It begins by building the case of why self-care is important and needed as the experience if cancer, illness and death can be very difficult and overwhelming for participants. It suggests the need for policy and reforms at organisational level to encourage and support self-care and well-being of healthcare practitioners. It suggests different options for practitioners to find out what works for them including support from colleagues, interdisciplinary teams and developing self-care plans.

This section describes the authors' personal motivation to write this book. It describes the content of the book as well as the limitations that exist with the current knowledge base. Research has shown that not all families are well supported by healthcare practitioners. Children and young people may be overlooked and there is a lack of services targeted at them and 'child friendly' spaces. The book is targeted at healthcare professionals interested in working with children, young people and families experiencing parental cancer. The knowledge is limited by available research mostly focused on Western populations and a limited number of countries. More clarity and research are needed to understand individual differences for example by age and gender. The book is not focused on the medical aspects of cancer, but provides a more holistic understanding including the cultural, psychological and parental variables that impact the experience of parental cancer.

The chapter describes the current knowledge available to understand the role of family in parental cancer. Cancer impacts on the family and plays an important role in determining the overall experience of parental cancer. Some families are resilient and able to cope, while others may experience conflict. This chapter proposes that it is important for healthcare practitioners to get to know individual families, their characteristics as well as their resources to be able to identify and respond to their needs. Family communication has been identified as crucial in the family experience of cancer. More research, however, is needed to understand the impact of cancer on the family by the gender of the ill parent as well as more longitudinal research of the impact of cancer on the family over time.

This chapter describes some of the interventions that currently exist for children, young people and families, those which have been evaluated and the results for these evaluations have been reported. More rigorous methodologies are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, to ensure that they, in effect, support children, young people and families. Comparison between interventions is difficult because they use different measures and compare different outcomes. The more effective interventions share core components but are also flexible to adapt to the specific needs of families. These core components include the provision of information, improve communication, emotional skills, increase social support and coping skills.