Circles of Care

Circles of Care are volunteer support teams for African Americans facing serious illness with cancer. After training, teams provide practical, emotional and spiritual support in a coordinated way. Teams typically form in churches or social networks; their formation and function are controlled by the wishes of the person with cancer. The project is a controlled study of the impact of Circles of Care volunteer support teams. The objective is to test the effect of volunteer support teams on cancer communication, quality of life and quality of supportive and palliative care for African Americans living with advanced cancer. Forty support teams with 200 volunteers will be recruited to extend support to 40 African Americans with Stage III or IV lung, colorectal or breast cancer. The RE-AIM framework will be used to evaluate the intervention and generate pilot data for further research.