Why Robust Wraparound Services Are Important for a Pediatric Cancer Center: A Q&A With Wade Iwata, MSW
Wade Iwata, MSW, is social work supervisor for Seattle Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center
Q: How would you define wraparound services?
It’s the support we offer to patients within their whole environment. So that’s the patient with their siblings, their parents, their extended family, their school system, and their community. Because cancer just doesn’t affect the child. It pertains to everybody who’s part of their life.
Q: What do you think is the most important thing that Seattle Children’s does for a family that they may not get at another hospital or a cancer center?
There are a lot of unique benefits at Seattle Children’s that other facilities don’t typically offer.
- For one thing, we have a really large psychosocial team. We have 11 social workers and then two social service specialists who are dedicated specifically to the Cancer and Blood Disorder Center.
- Our social service specialist team is laser focused on concrete needs, like helping families travel from wherever they’re coming from across the country or from across the world, setting up flights, local housing, and really being that support to them in getting to Seattle. They are like a concierge service.
- We provide in-house school services to keep kids engaged and on-track with their learning.
- Families coming from far away feel like they have a connection here, somebody who is on their side really working to support them.
Q: If a family doesn’t have this kind of support, what is that impact to the care or their outcome, potentially?
I think the social work team in particular has a huge impact on outcomes for kids. Our medical teams of doctors and nurses and others do an amazing job of addressing the medical issues patients are facing. We are here to address everything else: the emotional side of things, the school side of things, trying to create as normal of a life as we possibly can.
These kids are plucked out of their everyday life and brought into a new world and a new system. It’s emotionally and physically traumatic for them. Our work is to process that with them and support not only the patients but also their families, their siblings, their caregivers. Just helping them to address this new situation that they’re facing. And I think this support improves outcomes that are huge for the families because, while they know they’re getting great medical care, the emotional toll of having a child diagnosed with cancer is immense. And we need to process that with them and help support them through that process.