A Recap of Our 2024 West Coast Conference

Nicole Jarvis, LMSW on October 25, 2024

This past Saturday, October 19th, we hosted our 10th annual West Coast Conference on Work & Cancer virtually. With over 130 individuals attended, the day was full of connections, guidance, and support! Attendees included patients, survivors, caregivers, HR professionals, nonprofit and healthcare workers, along with managers, coworkers, advocates, friends and family members from around the country.

Two sessions were presented, ‘Navigating Work After Diagnosis’ and ‘Managing Stress’, with the audience hearing from two CAC staff members, and longtime friend to CAC, Julie Larson, LCSW, who works primarily with those under 40 experiencing life changes such as cancer in her private practice. Attendees information and guidance on disclosure, effective job searching techniques, stress management strategies, and much more!

While attendees are still in the process of submitting post-event evaluations, the feedback thus far has been positive with many respondents pointing to the approachability of the conference and the warm, supportive environment. One attendee stated:
“This was a very interesting and informative presentation filled with lots of inspiring thoughts, along with the supportive nature of Cancer and Careers staff who will be with cancer patients in whatever challenges they request information on.”

Though our Technology Assistance Program, we provided laptops to cancer patients and survivors who don’t have access to a reliable device and would be otherwise unable to attend the Conference. (If you are interested in being notified about future Technology Assistance Programs, click here.) To further our commitment to accessibility, we also provided real-time closed captioning throughout the day for all attendees.

If you were unable to join us for the Conference, please check out the remaining webinars in our 2024 Balancing Work & Cancer Webinar Series, where you’ll find deep dives on many of the issues explored during the day. We also offer these sessions on our video archive to replay at your convenience. The 2025 schedule of webinars will be released later in the fall. In addition, keep an eye out as registration opens for our virtual Midwest Conference on Work & Cancer happening in March, 2025.

And of course, none of this would be possible without our generous sponsors, whose generous support ensures we are able to provide this conference free of charge!