Addressing the Challenge of Children’s Brain Cancer

Cancer is an incredibly challenging reality of life for many families. And it is never an easy journey from diagnosis to treatment, and hopefully, remission and a long healthy life. This is especially true when cancer affects the health of a child, and when the form of cancer is one that is tough to treat with the options we currently have in our toolkit.

Both of these things are true with paediatric brain cancer. And the data reveals a sobering fact: positive outcomes are not statistically better than they were 30 years ago.

But where there is a problem like this, there is usually a group of smart, dedicated people who are looking to solve it.

And from those people coming together, a new initiative that unites the leading researchers, facilities and funding is striving to dramatically improve the lives of the kids and families affected by brain cancer.

The Work of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre

The Children’s Brain Cancer Centre is Australia’s first research initiative solely focused on paediatric brain cancer, treatment, and survivorship to boost brain cancer research capacity and outcomes in Queensland and beyond.

It does this through uniting three key ingredients to help make a meaningful difference:

1. The best people in the research field (lab scientists, theoretical researchers).
2. The best people on the ‘front line’ of treatment (primary care physicians, paediatric specialists, surgeons, oncologists).
3. Cutting-edge facilities and resources to support those professionals to do their best work.

The Goals of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre

The long-term goal of the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre is to defeat brain cancer. But that work will take time and progress will be incremental. But incremental progress is incredibly valuable. Every single step forward is a tangible improvement for a family confronting an enormous challenge, and it is the accumulation of these steps that has the potential to make big improvements. So, the nearer-term goals of the Centre include:

• Contributing to the Australian Brain Cancer Mission.
• Doubling survival rates for those diagnosed with brain cancer within the next 10 years.
• Improving the quality of life of those living with brain cancer.

How BIA Will Support the Children’s Brain Cancer in 2023

Each year at BIA we undertake a process to figure out which charity we would like to support at a corporate level for the year. It’s a wonderful opportunity for staff to speak about causes that they are passionate about, and for others to hear about initiatives that they may not have been previously aware of.

This is in addition to all the work that members of our team undertake by donating their resources to their charitable organisation of choice.

In recent years, we have settled on the idea of voting on which charity to support. In 2023 we are proud to announce that we have chosen to support the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre.

We believe that one of the most effective ways to contribute to a charity is to embed it in the ‘regular’ workflows of the business. This approach is complementary to the ‘single day’ fundraising events and initiatives on the calendar that raise valuable awareness and funds.

When thinking about our charitable giving as a business it was important to us to be like our offering to brokers: consistent, reliable and ongoing.

That’s why $1 from each policy bound through bindIT in 2023 will be donated to the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre.

The smallest trickle of water can combine with other streams to eventually become a strong flowing river. In the same way, our hope is that this steady, consistent accumulation of funds every time one of the brokers we proudly serve binds a policy for their clients on bindIT, will eventually become a strong flow of funds that we can send to the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre to support its life-changing work.

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