Teenage Cancer Trust

Our care and support is life-saving in more ways than one.

Every day, seven young people aged 13-24 hear the words “you have cancer”.

From that moment, everything changes. Cancer doesn’t just devastate young people’s health. It threatens to take away everything they care about – their identity, their independence, and their dreams.

A cancer diagnosis shouldn’t define who you are. As well as funding specialist nurses and hospital units within the NHS to provide the very best clinical care, we do everything we can to make sure cancer doesn’t stop young people living their lives, during treatment and beyond. And we’re the only UK charity dedicated to meeting this vital need.

Our nurses and youth support teams have the time to get to know each young person as an individual – their passions, their hobbies and what’s going on in their life outside cancer, so they feel seen for who they are.

We’re there to listen, explain things simply and get the answers to their questions, so they feel more in control at what can be a scary and confusing time.

We help them manage the impact of cancer on family and friends, and connect them with others their age going through it too, so they don’t feel alone.

And we support them to keep up with their studies, career and life goals, or to get back where they want to be once treatment ends.

Because that’s what getting through cancer looks like.

In Kent, around 55 young people a year receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis turning their lives and that of their family upside down.

We are working hard to ensure that local young people have the vital support they need, when they need it most, both now and in the future.

Ruby’s Story…