Once the 15 evidence‐based Standards of Psychosocial Care for Children with Cancer and their Families were developed and published, clinicians asked for a companion toolkit to effectively guide and support the implementation of the Standards of Care at their treatment sites.

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Despite the importance of implementing the Standards into practice, significant barriers and challenges exist. In order to overcome barriers to implementation, the Matrix and Guidelines were developed. The Matrix was designed to help clinicians  assess the current level of psychosocial care at their treatment sites. While the Guidelines provide a pathway towards  achieving optimal care.

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The development of the Matrix and Guidelines spanned multiple years and involved dozens of authors of the  Psychosocial Standards of Care. Additionally, input and reviews of the Matrix and Guidelines were both captured and vetted with several professional organizations and peers of the authors, representing dozens of the nation's leading comprehensive cancer centers that provide care to children with cancer and their families.

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The outputs were formulated into an overview paper with supporting documents in a Special Report of Pediatric Blood & Cancer, published first in July 2020. The overview article  describes the process involved in the creation of standard templates and the development of content based on rigorous reviews from multidisciplinary psychosocial experts, focus groups, and multiple revisions based on further expert review. The resulting Matrix and Guidelines are included as Supplemental Information.

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The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation financially supported this multi-year, multi-site, multi-constituent efforts to develop the tools, and once again paid for permanent open (i.e. Free) access to the Matrix & Guidelines found on WileyOnline.