Charity launches Pride pin badges for staff supporting young people with cancer to wear

This Pride, Young Lives vs Cancer has created a bespoke pin badge using the Pride flag colours to be made available for all its staff supporting children and young people with cancer to wear. The charity hopes this will help open up conversations with young people and families and create a greater sense of belonging and inclusion for those in LGBTQIA+ communities. 

Throughout Pride month, Young Lives vs Cancer has been sharing the voices of young people and families from LGBTQIA+ communities as well as information about what it is like for a young LGBTQIA+ person facing cancer and family members on its social media channels. At the start of the month, the charity launched its Pride Promise, a statement setting out its intentions to encourage belonging and inclusion for staff, volunteers, children, young people and families from LGBTQIA+ communities. 

The Pride Promise is part of the charity’s wider Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging strategy, which was launched in December 2021. As the strategy states, Young Lives vs Cancer strives to be a diverse, inclusive organisation that encourages a sense of belonging.  

The introduction of the new pin badges for its front-line services staff is the next step on the charity’s mission to create an inclusive organisation for everyone who interacts with Young Lives vs Cancer. 

Young Lives vs Cancer social worker Lyn Soh has been wearing a rainbow badge at the Royal Marsden hospital for a while so has already seen how effective wearing a badge with the Pride colours can be for young people facing cancer. She is looking forward to having a bespoke badge for Young Lives vs Cancer staff. 

Lyn says: “I immediately recognised the opportunity that the badge would bring in my interactions with the families and young people, by identifying myself as an open and safe person to talk to about aspects of their care, or anything else.  

“Having cancer and going through treatment is a scary enough experience without having to worry about what others might think of you, and every single LGBTQIA+ person has to essentially ‘come out’ to each new person they speak to at some point.” 

Young Lives vs Cancer hopes that creating its own bespoke pin badge will help young people facing cancer and family members from LGBTQIA+ communities feel more of a sense of belonging.  

Kei-Retta Farrell, Head of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Young Lives vs Cancer, says: “The launch of our new pin badges for Young Lives vs Cancer social workers and Home from Home staff is a great step forward in our mission to create an inclusive organisation for anyone who interacts with us. 

“We hope this will help to facilitate conversations between the young people and families we support and our staff members, to help people feel less alone and encourage open and honest conversations.” 

The charity has launched two designs of the pin badge, which they have shared on social media for their followers to vote for their favourite. The chosen pin badge will then soon go into production and be made available for Young Lives vs Cancer social workers to wear in hospitals across the UK and its staff to wear in the charity’s eleven Home from Homes. The badges will also soon be on sale for the public to wear and show their support for young people with cancer and their families too.