In 2018, the Cancer Society offered extensive training to a wide range of professional groups and volunteers. Support persons The Cancer Society of Finland organised support person training in many parts of the country during 2018. Altogether 250 persons received peer support training, 85 persons received peer support training in end-of-life care, and 46 persons received peer counsellor training. CSF member organisations also organised supplementary training for their own support persons; these training sessions involved 400 persons in all. According to the reports submitted, more than 1 000 persons received counselling training. We also organised other meetings intended for support persons. Support persons in palliative and end-of-life care The pilot project for training support persons in palliative and end-of-life care was continued, especially in collaboration with the Cancer Society of Pohjanmaa. All training materials were translated into Swedish. The training of support persons in palliative and end-of-life care is linked to the training of peer support persons. The palliative training is carried out as supplementary training for both peer support persons and support persons in end-of-life care. Training of experts by experience In 2018, ten new experts by experience were trained for the Cancer Society. The pilot project for further training of experts by experience continued. Nurses and cancer treatment. The CSF and the Finnish Nurses Association’s education and publishing company Fioca Ltd jointly organised the fifth seminar on nurses and cancer treatment on 17–19 April 2018 in Helsinki. The seminar was intended for healthcare professionals working with cancer patients. During the course of the year, oncology nurses participated in a number of different training events, such as the Cancer Foundation’s symposium, the rehabilitation days, the national oncology nurse days, palliative training days, and the patient ombudsman days. Other training The Cancer Society organised a training session on tobacco and other intoxicants for health education teachers and students. The training was held at the University of Jyväskylä. The training had 102 participants. Each year, the CSF organises a rehabilitation day for cancer treatment teachers at universities of applied sciences. The 2018 training day attracted 24 participants. The CSF also annually organises a training day for nurses at the regional associations on topical health promotion themes, and another training day on rehabilitation. At Pink Ribbon events all across the country, the CSF organised lectures about the prevention of breast cancer. Training activities by the Finnish Cancer Registry The director of statistics at the Finnish Cancer Registry was invited to a fixed-term, part-time professorship in cancer epidemiology at the University of Tampere. The same position was previously held by the director of the Registry. The director of research at the Cancer Registry had a fixed-term, part-time professorship in epidemiology in the same faculty. Many of the employees of the Cancer Registry work at various universities as docents and are involved in university teaching and in supervising doctoral theses and advanced work and master’s theses. In addition, the researchers work as scientific experts, for instance as peer reviewers for journals in the field. The Finnish Cancer Registry participated in the teaching and guidance of foreign students at the University of Tampere’s International Doctoral Programme in Epidemiology. It also participated in the teaching organised by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki, which aims to familiarise young researchers and future medical doctors with epidemiological cancer research. The Cancer Registry also plays an important role in the Nordic Summer School in Cancer Epidemiology, which has similar objectives.
