Kate Middleton Officially Returns to Work After Cancer Treatment

On Tuesday, Kate Middleton made her return to the Court Circular for the first time since completing cancer treatments. Her first engagement back was a private meeting for her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood organization, which she founded in June 2021.

“The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron, The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, this afternoon held an Early Years Meeting at Windsor Castle,” read the daily record of official royal engagements. The meeting is the first official event that Kate has hosted this year, though she was also listed in the circular when she appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the Trooping the Colour parade in June and in the Wimbledon royal box in July.

According to the Times, the purpose of the meeting was to update Kate on the progress that her early years project has made so far this year. Last Friday, the organization hosted a charity event in Manchester where executive director Christian Guy presented findings from the Business Roundtable report the group released in May, which discusses the importance of early childhood education to the economy of the future. “We are on a mission to inspire more action and showcase the great work already being done,” Guy said in a statement after the event, which will be followed by more similar meetings across the country. “We are so excited about what’s to come and the action we can drive together.”

On September 9, Kate announced that she had completed a course of chemotherapy following her cancer diagnosis earlier this year, and a source close to the princess told Vanity Fair that she plans to undertake “a handful of public engagements over the coming months,” amid “a light program of work between now and the end of the year.”

In a video that featured scenes from her family’s recent summer break in Norfolk, she shared some of her emotions about the experience in a voiceover. “Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes,” she said. “Despite all that has gone before, I enter this new phase of recovery with a renewed sense of hope and appreciation of life.”