History

1982 – Alastair Cunningham started holding courses for people with cancer at the Ontario Cancer Institute. These developed into the Healing Journey Programme. Click here for more information about Alastair.

March 2007 – Petra Griffiths, the Director of the Paul D’Auria Cancer Support Centre, saw Alastair Cunningham speak at the Penny Brohn Memorial Lecture in London and was very interested by what he had to say about the Healing Journey.

After discussions with colleagues, it was decided to explore the possibility of bringing the Healing Journey to the UK.

October 2007 – first meeting of the Healing Journey Education Group, which started planning the first Healing Journey courses in the UK.

January 2008 - the first Level 1 course was held at the Paul D’Auria Cancer Support Centre in London with 26 participants. It was led by Patrick Browning and Pauline Withers-Born.

Subsequent courses happened as follows: Level 2 – February 2008; Level 3 – September 2008; Level 4 – January 2009; and Level 5 – May 2009.

June 2008 – the Paul D’Auria Cancer Support Centre organised for Alastair Cunningham to come over from Canada to give a talk in Clapham to about 100 people and then to give a 2-day training for potential Healing Journey course leaders, attended by 24 people.

September 2008 – the second Level 1 course started in London.

June 2009 – the first group of UK participants to go through all five courses completed
Level 5.

July 2009 – two workshops about the Healing Journey were delivered at the National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups in Manchester by Judy Benson and Francesca Hannah, and by Petra Griffiths.