The Haven is a unique registered UK charity with three beautiful day centres providing free programmes of psychological support and integrative therapies to help people diagnosed with breast cancer. The programmes of therapy provided over the last 12 years have been researched by various methods of evaluation including large randomised controlled trials including nested qualitative data, a small randomised controlled pilot study, self-evaluation, feedback questionnaires, telephone interviews and focus groups. When trying to evaluate cancer supportive care programmes in a not for profit organisations, challenges including funding, recruitment, control groups, and generalisability of results to other settings.
In collaboration with other organisations, the Haven's small research team have evaluated outcomes of the Haven's therapeutic programmes providing preliminary data as a platform for future larger multicentre studies. Learning about the experience of the Haven may help others take forward further research in this field. Details of existing Haven research can be found at www.thehaven.org.uk/research.