Family Counselling Support

The Children’s Cancer Foundation supports families that are facing difficulties due to childhood cancer diagnosis and treatment by providing gap funding for professional counselling / therapy.

Who is eligible?

• Children, adolescents, and young adults treated for cancer or other diseases within the Children’s Cancer Centre in Australia aged up to 18 years (“the Patient”). Patients must be either on active treatment, or within 5 years of treatment;

• Parents, grandparents or siblings of children, adolescents of the Patient.

Number of sessions funded:

The Foundation will fund 10 counselling sessions for the Patient ad their eligible family members, up to a maximum amount of $100 per session (for details see table below).

A maximum of 10 sessions in total will be funded per family.

* Note: All Practitioners must be registered with Medicare and have current membership with their relevant professional body.

** Note: these therapists must have current membership of their relevant professional body, to the satisfaction of the psycho-oncology lead in the treating hospital.  Documentation may be needed to prove this.

Application Process

How do I apply?

Individuals and families can either self-refer or ask the hospital to facilitate a referral and use the form below to submit their application. The process is:

• Choose practitioner (this can be done in consultation with the Hospital team)
• Submit application form
• The Foundation assesses your application and will advise accordingly
• If the application is accepted, applicant attends therapy sessions, pays for session in full, and submits required invoices/statements (“Required Documents”) to the Foundation for reimbursement. 

Claim Process

Once you have received approval for your application / choice of practitioner*,

1. Patient and/or eligible family members attend sessions. 
2. Payment must be made in full for the sessions. 
3. Required documents (paid receipts and any medicare rebate statement) to be submitted to the Foundation.
4. Claims can be made for individual sessions (10 separate claims) – or multiples in one claim.
5. Claims will be assessed and if accepted will be paid into nominated bank account.
6. The Foundation processes payments once per month around the 15^th of the month.

*Note: The Foundation suggests you wait for approval of your application before attending sessions, as we cannot guarantee approval of your application.