TurningPoint Breast Most cancers Rehabilitation, a 501(c)(3) charitable group, is marking 20 years of offering important survivorship providers designed to boost the standard of life for breast most cancers sufferers of all backgrounds, together with males, going through a myriad of challenges of their respective journeys to a full restoration.
As the one nonprofit group of its variety in Georgia and all through the Southeast, TurningPoint holds a particular place in my coronary heart as my mom continues her breast most cancers journey on the age of 89. Sadly, my sister-in-law fought her battle valiantly for 3 years; nonetheless, she handed away when she was solely 50. I’m additionally impressed day by day by these exceptional sufferers and survivors who stroll by way of the doorways of our two clinics in Sandy Springs and downtown Atlanta, respectively. They — together with practically 20,000 men and women in Georgia — are such extraordinary warriors and deal with themselves with superb energy, perseverance and beauty.
Jill Binkley, our visionary founder, a two-time breast most cancers survivor and bodily therapist, established TurningPoint in 2003 as she noticed firsthand a major hole in rehabilitative care accessible to breast most cancers sufferers. A easy process comparable to reaching for a plate, combing your hair, lifting a toddler, or swinging a tennis racket might be difficult, if not not possible. Since its inception, TurningPoint has been steadfast in its dedication to offering specialised and evidence-based rehabilitation providers tailor-made to fulfill the distinctive wants of breast most cancers sufferers.
As a part of our mission to enhance the standard of life for breast most cancers sufferers, our complete method to rehabilitation features a vary of providers: one-on-one personalized bodily remedy, therapeutic massage remedy, dietary counseling, lymphedema screening and administration, emotional assist, and tailor-made health lessons. We consider in addressing the holistic wants of every affected person, recognizing that bodily, emotional, and psychological well-being are all interconnected elements of therapeutic.
TurningPoint additionally focuses on lowering socioeconomic, racial, cultural and geographic obstacles to care, so we proceed to develop applications on this entrance. To this finish, we have now applied two applications: The Atlanta Initiative and The Georgia Outreach Initiative.
The Atlanta Initiative started as a pilot program in late 2021 that works alongside the group to immediately impression underserved black and LGBTQIA+ breast most cancers survivors in downtown and south Atlanta. There are appreciable brief and long-term bodily, useful and emotional points going through all breast most cancers sufferers that impression their high quality of life, together with restricted vary of movement, lack of mobility, decreased arm energy, and swollen lymph nodes.
Energetic engagement in rehabilitation and train actions has been proven to drastically cut back these painful points and, simply as importantly, can forestall the recurrence of most cancers. Analysis additionally paperwork racial disparity in breast most cancers survivorship outcomes for Black and LGBTQIA+ sufferers as a result of numerous obstacles to care, together with discrimination, lack of accessibility to high quality care, in addition to socioeconomic, age and geographical constraints.
The Atlanta Initiative makes use of a culturally related and community-based method to cut back these identified obstacles and facilitates the enlargement of group assets to achieve these underserved populations. Throughout our pilot program of the Atlanta Initiative, one in all our Atlanta Group Companions, the Middle for Black Girls’s Wellness (CBWW), allowed TurningPoint to deal with sufferers in a shared area at their native facility sooner or later per week.
The success of the pilot led to extra funding supplied by way of September 2025 from an nameless native grantor to develop the Atlanta Initiative to a broader Black viewers and embody the LGBTQIA+ group. Since our partnership launched with CBWW in September 2022, we have now supplied therapy for greater than 1,700 affected person visits. And since we opened our satellite tv for pc clinic in downtown Atlanta in September 2023 – at the moment open three days per week — we have now grown our common variety of affected person visits by 64 %.
Almost 90 % of these handled on the Atlanta satellite tv for pc clinic are Black and/or LGBTQIA+ breast most cancers sufferers. As a result of we’re devoted to turning no affected person away, we have now supplied full or partial monetary help to greater than 50 % of sufferers at this clinic. To lower the burden on geographic and transportation obstacles to care, TurningPoint gives transportation help and schedules digital appointments by way of the Atlanta Initiative.
Secondly, the Georgia Outreach Initiative — equally vital to our sufferers and survivors — started in January 2022 with a deal with reaching rural areas of Georgia the place accessibility to high quality care will be tough and practically 70 % of the inhabitants are un- or under-insured making reasonably priced care very tough to seek out. TurningPoint at the moment receives grant funding by way of the Georgia Middle for Oncology Analysis and Training (CORE) to proceed with this initiative and develop its attain into counties not at the moment served.
Since 2022, we have now reached 150 new sufferers dwelling in 16 counties outdoors metro Atlanta who’re handled with specialised rehabilitation providers, together with bodily remedy, assist teams, dietary assist and train. TurningPoint had not supplied providers in these counties earlier than that time. These visits are primarily performed by way of telehealth, with roughly one-third of those sufferers receiving a hybrid mannequin of care, each in-clinic and digital. Transportation and monetary help are additionally made accessible to almost 20 % of this affected person inhabitants.
Former TurningPoint affected person and breast most cancers survivor Natalie Colbert-Carpenter wrote the next:
“My private expertise with TurningPoint has been nothing wanting transformative as they performed a pivotal position in bettering my mobility, well being and psychological well-being after most cancers, a double mastectomy, and reconstructive surgical procedure. I’m acutely conscious that many Black ladies and girls of colour face obstacles attending to TurningPoint due to location and monetary constraints. The enlargement of TurningPoint to a location in downtown Atlanta is a commendable initiative that goals to bridge the accessibility hole.”
As we look forward to one other twenty years of offering breast most cancers sufferers the mandatory energy to not solely survive however thrive in all elements of their lives after most cancers, TurningPoint will stay dedicated to offering specialised and compassionate care that may improve the lives of all breast most cancers sufferers and survivors. We’ll prioritize lowering obstacles to care — turning nobody away as a result of an incapability to pay or present satisfactory insurance coverage protection — whereas making accessible a secure and accessible area for our core providers.
The long-term sustainability and success of our clinics and applications are fully reliant on continued donations, grants, particular occasions, and different sources of funding. If you are interested in studying extra and supporting breast most cancers survivors on their life-changing journeys to creating a full restoration and changing into cancer-free, please attain out to me at lrusco@myturningpoint.org or go to our web site at myturningpoint.org
