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Reimagine is an education company that leverages distance-learning technology and a curriculum that has been proven to help cancer patients and caregivers overcome the social and emotional challenges associated with a cancer diagnosis. The company uses live instructors to teach its evidence-based resiliency curriculum in online classes. It also has a private, secure online community that allows members to connect with each other, with integrative health experts, and with curated information on “the other half of care” – all the non-medical ways in which people touched by cancer can take care of themselves.

The company is based in Los Angeles.

Membership

The company requires a membership to take the online classes. Nine basic training classes, with course materials and access to advanced courses, costs $399 for one person. An additional membership for the caregiver, or the person being cared for, can be purchased for $100. A membership allows a person to have a lifetime access to articles in the magazine and the community where individuals can connect with other members. Upon joining Reimagine, members receive a course materials kit in the mail that includes the workbook, journal and CDs necessary for the Basic Training course.

Curriculum

The curriculum called Pillars4Life is based on The Seven Pillars of Personal Strength™ and has been validated in two clinical studies at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. The most recent study, a 17-site study in collaboration with the Livestrong Foundation, showed that participants who went through the online course had significant improvement in distress, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and self-efficacy. Participants report preferring the online delivery of the course to in-person programs because of its convenience and the anonymity it offers.

Instructors

Instructors for the live classes are called Pillar Guides and must have at minimum a masters degree in counseling, social work or psychology. In spite of the background of the Pillar Guides, Reimagine does not provide mental health counseling or services. All classes are highly structured, experiential, skills-training sessions in which participants apply the skills of the course to the specific challenges they are facing. The curriculum teaches two basic types of skills: solution-focused thinking skills and mind-body skills.

Additional Courses

The company is currently developing a number of additional courses, including a course to help people dealing with grief, a course for people facing end-of-life, and a resiliency skills course for children, and a course for military families.

History

Reimagine was co-founded by Kristin MacDermott, a licensed professional counselor (Colorado) and marriage and family therapist, and Tina Staley, a licensed clinical social worker (North Carolina) who has worked extensively with end-of-life patients. MacDermott and Staley met in 2002 in Aspen, Colorado and worked together with cancer patients and their families at Aspen Valley Hospital. In 2004 MacDermott and Staley started a non-profit called Pathfinders to provide counseling and volunteer services to people touched by cancer in the Aspen area.

Around this time MacDermott and Staley began developing the framework for the Seven Pillars of Personal Strength™ (originally The Seven Pillars of Personal Recovery™) and the Pathfinders program was studied as a site in a statewide study on palliative care funded by the Colorado Health Foundation.

In 2006 MacDermott and Staley were invited to study the feasibility and effectiveness of their curriculum with women with metastatic breast cancer at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. While results from the study showed significant improvement in many important psychosocial benchmarks, including helplessness, hopelessness, distress, despair, and even fatigue, Staley and MacDermott were aware that the in-person, one-on-one counseling model with which they delivered this early version of the curriculum was too expensive to scale.

Reimagine utilizes a curriculum specifically designed for online, small group delivery. The most recent study conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in collaboration with The Livestrong Foundation showed that the online course is not only preferred to the in-person program but produces significantly greater results. Participants in the Livestrong study had significant improvement in distress, depression, anxiety, PTSD and self-efficacy.

In 2014, Reimagine was written about in the media such as the Orange County Register.

Partners

Reimagine and its Pillars4Life course has received funding from many important organizations in the cancer world, including the Duke Cancer Institute, Susan G. Komen, LiveSTRONG Foundation, National Institute of Health, Women’s Cancer Research Fund, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, The Colorado Health Foundation, Genentech, Pfizer, and The Painted Turtle camp for children with life-threatening illnesses. Non-cancer funding has also been received from Naval Special Warfare Family Foundation.