Unknown: Welcome, everyone to today's session of the Young
Adult Program Resource Spotlight: IAYA smartphone
smartphone app led by Paige Malinowski and Sarah Fay. This
program is hosted by the Blum Resource Center. Over at the
Blum, we are grateful to the YAP team for this continued
partnership. If you have any other questions or would like
more information about resources and programs offered through the
Blum, please visit our website at
www.dana-farber.org/resourcecenter, or email us at
blum_cener@dfci.harvard.edu. Thank you all for joining us. I
will now pass the workshop over to Sarah.
Thank you, Becca. Just to quickly introduce myself, hi my
name is Sarah Fay, the program and research coordinator of the
Young Adult Program.
Hi, everyone. My name is Paige Malinowski. I'm the program
manager of the Young Adult Program. And Sarah and I are
here today to tell you more about the Young Adult Program.
And we're specifically to focus on one of our resources ,a
smartphone app called IAYA for young adults receiving care at
So a quick overview of the young adult program it is a
Dana Farber.
psychosocial support program for young adults receiving care for
cancer blood disorder at Dana Farber. YAP provides emotional
support services opportunities to meet other young adults, and
educational programs aimed at enhancing knowledge and self
advocacy skills. The programs and resources can be accessed at
any point in your care whether you're on treatment or after
treatment or completed treatment.
Any young adult between the ages of 18 through early 40s with a
cancer diagnosis or blood disorder is very welcome to
join. YAP there's no strict age cutoff. If you identify as a
young adult, please join us. YAP offers a variety of programs and
services. All of which are shown here. This is a very busy slide.
But just to quickly review some of these options, we have a drop
in group offered virtually once a month on Zoom. It's a place
for young adults to gather and connect with each other and
share experiences around being a young adult with cancer. We also
offer our peer programs. One program is for folks who are on
active treatment, and we have another program specifically for
folks that have completed treatment. These programs are
between six to eight weeks and where you get to know other
young adults over this longer period of time and also learn
some coping strategies and receive some education around
common challenges and issues that arise for young adults. We
offer in person social events, which are currently all held
outdoors for everyone's safety. And we also offer virtual
educational social programming, focusing on issues like dating
and relationships dealing with uncertainty, managing anxiety,
and also a chance for young adults to connect with their
peers. We also have a drop in support group for young adult
caregivers or caregivers of young adults. And this is a
place again for caregivers of young adults to connect and
share experiences with each other. And lastly, our IAYA
smartphone, our IAYA smartphone app, which I'll turn it over to
Sarah to share more.
Thank You Paige. So this is our IAYA smartphone app. It's a
customized smartphone app that is designed just for Dana
Farber, young adult patients. I'll go through a little bit
more about the specifics of what IAYA is made up of and how you
can use it to your advantage. So how can I engage with IAYA? So
like other social media apps on IAYA you can both post and
consume content, you can post about how you're doing how
you're feeling or sharing any sort of cancer meme accounts are
really just engaging with the platform whatever way works for
you. So this can include commenting and liking on others
posts, or using the direct message feature to reach out to
patients individually. In addition to these features, you
can join groups based on identity factors. You can also
join IAYA programs which I'll go into further depth in a future
slide. On IAYA you can also learn about young adults
specific resources and upcoming events within the young adult
program including various support groups and social and
educational events that we host within Dana Farber and all site
also outside of Dana Farber that are catered specifically for
young adults. Just to note, this app is not meant to be used
during a mental health crisis. It is monitored daily, but there
is no access to urgent support. We also have a coping toolbox
embedded within our IAYA app. So this coping toolbox consists of
several different resources from how to cope to anxiety to
uncertainty to other young adult challenges that our patients
face every day. So why use IAYA? So the main reason we created
this app is we saw a need for a digital intervention to try to
tackle the isolation that our young adults patients feel from
a day to day basis. So, that's the main reason is to really
reduce that that gap that we have in this population. Another
reason folks like to use this app is to stream IAYA Live
Events. And on these events, our young adult team invites an
expert in to answer young adults specific questions on challenges
that our young adults face. In these events, the team invites
experts to speak on a topic in the audience can send in live
questions, and they will be answered right there on the
spot. And lastly, this is just a great way to stay updated on all
of our upcoming support groups virtual events in person
socials. And here on the side, you'll see access to two videos
that our team has created for young adults to check out. And
these videos will give you an inside look of what the app will
look like when you download it. If you wanted a preview of how
it works or a tutorial, these two videos would be super
helpful for you to check out. And lastly, how do I sign up for
Yap or IAYA? The easiest way is to be in touch with our team
through email. So our email is Yap. So why YAP@dfci.harvard.edu
or by the phone number listed on the screen. Feel free to also
scan the QR code listed on the screen here to sign up for IAYA
or check out our website. We also publish an monthly
newsletter that we can help you get signed up for as well
through reaching out through email or phone. Do not hesitate
to reach out with questions and we hope to see you on IAYA or
involved in our YAP programming in another way. Thank you,
Becca. All right, great.
I'll leave this slide up so people can scan those QR codes.
Thank you so much sarin pages is a really great overview of YAP
and IAYA. I really hope that there are some young adults out
there who can take advantage of both of these resources. Thank
you. Again, this will be posted on our Blum YouTube playlist as
well as our digital resource center. And stay tuned for more bye