Vision & Principles
Our Vision
Support more women with breast and gynaecological cancers to actively participate in their care and to live well.
Empower our volunteers to bring the principles of the service to life and to support other women with breast and gynaecological cancers.
Improve the effectiveness, profile and reach of the service.
Innovate in response to the diverse needs of people affected by breast and gynaecological cancers.
Share what we’ve learned so far and continue our learning.
Collaborate with our colleagues in other organisations to improve care and support for women with breast and gynaecological cancers.
Our Principles
Acknowledge difference
We recognise that every woman’s experience of cancer is different and must be seen in the broader context of their lives.
Share experience
We will share experiences, we will not give advice.
Provide a welcoming environment
We will provide a welcoming, accessible and safe environment.
Encourage participation
We will actively encourage people to participate in the development and operation of BreaCan.
Empower people
We are committed to enhancing people’s skills and capacity to make informed choices, as they wish.
Respect privacy
We respect the privacy of people.
Be non-judgemental
We will provide information and support in a non-judgemental way.
Maintain high standards
We are committed to delivering a high quality service. We regularly review the relevance of the service to its users and we seek to make improvements wherever possible.
Our Goals for 2009-2012
BreaCan through its Strategic Plan sets out service goals and objectives for the 2009-2012. These include:
1. Increase the number of people using our service
In pursuing this goal, we aim to continue the successful strategies we have already developed, as well as exploring new ways of engaging with our target audiences. We were delighted to welcome women with gynaecological cancers into the service in 2007. Encouraging more of these women to use the service will be a priority for us over the next three years. We will also be paying particular attention to groups of women which have been identified for their lower rates of participation in our service, such as women in rural and regional areas, indigenous women and women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Our resource centre will remain the focal point of our service, although we will explore the use of technology to extend our reach even further. As always, the needs and experiences of women will underpin everything we do.
2. Expand our capacity
If our service is to continue to grow and succeed, we need a sustainable volunteer workforce. We must ensure that our volunteers are appropriately recruited, trained, coordinated and supported to provide a high quality service. Equally, we must ensure that our staff feel valued and motivated to play their parts in the development of the service. We will maintain our connections across the cancer services sector, ensuring the constant flow of information into and out of the service. While the service now enjoys recurrent funding from the Victorian Department of Human Services, we will also be exploring the possibility of additional funding through projects and partnerships with other organisations in the cancer services sector and beyond.
3. Extend our influence
We believe we have a lot of valuable experience to share with our colleagues in the cancer services sector. In developing collaborative relationships with key individuals and organisations, we seek to improve the care and support of women with breast and gynaecological cancers. We also intend to learn from these partnerships in order to improve the effectiveness of our own service.
BreaCan has always been an innovative service. Over the next three years, we seek to continue this innovation in responding to the diverse needs of people affected by breast and gynaecological cancer. In doing so, we will maintain the approach that has served us so well in the past: ‘start small and do it well’.
For more details on the BreaCan Strategic Plan, please download a copy here (889kb) or go to Publications.
