Susanna has been involvement manager at Breast Cancer Now for the past 3 years. She led the co-design and relaunch of Breast Cancer Voices in 2021, and since recruiting Sarah to the team in November 2022, has focused on strategic change such as strengthening relationships, building confidence in our work, and developing our policies.
This year, she’ll be handing over the baton to Zoe Harris as she moves on to new things.
How would you describe your role over the past 3 years?
It’s been so varied! Initially, I was working together with our Voices on the design and relaunch of the community following the merger of Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now. I wrote our involvement strategy which laid out our vision for how we should collaborate with people who are experts by experience and what we needed to put in place to achieve this.
It’s involved lots of relationship-building – with colleagues from just about every team, with individual Voices and groups like the Men’s Virtual Meet-Up, and with external researchers, academics, educators and project leads of all kinds. And a lot of learning about what good practice looks like and trying to share that on.
What have you enjoyed most about working at Breast Cancer Now?
It’s got to be the people. Our Breast Cancer Voices and all my colleagues are so fantastic. Everyone is really passionate about the same cause. And you’re all willing to get stuck in, try new things, and really focused on improving how we work and shaping the future for anyone affected by breast cancer.
What has been the biggest achievement of the past 3 years?
One of the biggest things has been seeing us evolve. It’s been really exciting to see more and more colleagues asking how they can find out what people affected by breast cancer want or need here. And how they can be involved in making these decisions. We’ve built a really strong team and our Breast Cancer Voices are part of that team.
They’ve helped us improve research, develop our support services, engage with healthcare professionals, develop how we fundraise – it’s everyone working together, bringing their different experiences, skills, strengths and energy.
What’s the biggest challenge or opportunity for the next 3 years?
In the next year, Breast Cancer Now is developing our new organisational strategy which will lay out what we should be focusing on and how we can make the most difference. We’re involving Voices at every level in this – from supporting our research project into understanding the biggest challenges facing people affected by breast cancer to sharing decision-making with Voices on our steering group.
Voices have a chance to influence our organisation and how we carry out our work, and our challenge is to really listen, to work together and see what’s possible.
So, why are you moving on?
I’m moving up north to be closer to my family, particularly my sister and new nephew. Family is really important to me and I want to be a part of their lives. It means I’ll no longer be close enough to get to one of our offices twice a week, and so I need to look for a new job. I’m incredibly sad to be leaving this amazing charity and this community of incredible people, but in Breast Cancer Voices we’re all about embracing change.
Zoe and Sarah will make sure we continue going from strength to strength, and I know all our Breast Cancer Voices will keep us on the right track!
Share your voice
You can check out our Share your voice page for more ways to get involved.