SUCCESS Life after Cure

Who we are

About SUCCESS Charity

We are a new UK charity, (in the final stage of registration with the Charity Commission), committed to enabling brighter futures for survivors of childhood brain tumours. We will shortly be launching a new brand identity and are developing plans to create a new website, designed to deliver key operational targets, (access to information and resource, and a new online community), as well as a vital new marketing and promotional tool.

Our Trustee Board comprises individuals from medical, legal, financial and charity sectors and most are also parents of brain tumour survivors. The charity also benefits from the support of a wider group of survivors, parents and volunteers, (primarily within the medical, health and education sectors) who are committed to helping us achieve our aims. We have appointed a Fundraising and Communications Consultant to lead on income generation and marketing

The Need

Every year, over 500 children are diagnosed with a brain tumour in the UK and 80% of them are deemed cured 5 years later. Brain tumour survivors are living longer thanks to more intensive treatments, but this almost always comes at a significant price.  Most brain tumour survivors continue to struggle with life-long, life altering disabilities and complications as a result of their tumour and of their treatment. These include delayed growth, infertility, severe irremediable obesity & secondary diabetes, epilepsy, strokes, paralysis, disfigurement, scoliosis, blindness, deafness, learning behavioral & emotional disorders, speech, language and communication disorders

Children are resilient and adaptable and can show remarkable recovery with early intervention. However, a lack of assessment both at diagnosis and post treatment into ongoing needs means they are effectively ‘cast adrift’ without the medical, educational and psychological support they need and deserve. These young survivors have growing and unmet needs. It is apparent that cure alone is simply not enough. 

Our Mission

Success has been established to redress the balance; to advocate for and provide survivors with the rehabilitative care and services they need, to empower them to live the lives they choose and to support them to fulfil their true potential. SUCCESS works to:

• Assist: create a new ‘one stop shop’ model of care, providing ‘joined up’ rehabilitative support services to address survivors’ clinical and therapeutic needs
• Equip: provide direct access to information, resources & key assessments
• Connect & Empower: through distinct peer support networking programmes & events
• Research: to better understand the consequences of brain injury after treatment