ADVOCACY + LEADERSHIP
Your experience can help shape what happens next.
Patients, survivors, caregivers, and community members see parts of the healthcare system that policy conversations can miss.
Touch4Life helps people turn lived experience into informed advocacy by understanding the issues, learning how policy works, and developing the skills to speak with confidence.
WHY ADVOCACY MATTERS
Change does not only happen in the exam room.
Decisions about healthcare access, testing, coverage, research, and patient protections are also shaped through public policy.
People who have experienced cancer firsthand can bring an important perspective to those conversations.
Effective advocacy begins with understanding the issue, knowing how decisions are made, and being able to communicate what patients and families experience in the real world.
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO ADVOCATE
There is more than one way to advocate.
LEARN
Understand the health issue, who is affected, what the evidence says, and what decisions are being considered.
SHARE
Use lived experience to help decision-makers understand how healthcare policies and systems affect real people.
ENGAGE
Participate in public meetings, listening sessions, community coalitions, legislative education, and other opportunities to contribute to the process.
LEAD
Help others understand an issue, organize information, build partnerships, and create space for patient and community perspectives.
TOUCH4LIFE LEADERSHIP + ADVOCACY
B-HAVE™
Breast Health Advocate Voices for Equity
B-HAVE is Touch4Life’s leadership and advocacy training program designed for people impacted by breast cancer and allies who want to develop the skills to participate more effectively in health policy conversations.
Co-created by Touch4Life and Cardea, B-HAVE combines lived experience with policy education, communication training, and practical advocacy skills.
What Participants Learn
Understand the Policy Landscape
Learn how health policy and legislative processes work and where patient voices can contribute.
Turn Experience Into a Clear Message
Learn how to communicate lived experience in ways that help others understand the real-world impact of healthcare decisions.
Build Advocacy Skills
Strengthen communication, analysis, relationship-building, and policy engagement skills.
Understand Key Breast-Health Issues
Explore issues affecting breast cancer patients and families, including access to biomarker and genetic testing.
Lived experience belongs in the conversation.
B-HAVE is designed for people who have been impacted by breast cancer, including patients, survivors, caregivers, and allies who want to deepen their understanding of advocacy and health policy.
Participants do not need previous legislative or policy experience. What matters is a willingness to learn, listen, develop new skills, and bring patient and community perspectives into the conversation.
From learning to leadership.
B-HAVE is about more than completing a curriculum. It is about helping advocates recognize the value of their experience, strengthen their voice, and see themselves as participants in the systems that shape health and healthcare.
B-HAVE Cohort Graduation
Meet members of a B-HAVE cohort and see what completing the advocacy and leadership experience means to the people who participated.