Back-Up Care
Dear Friends of Women i n Science,
NIH's Child Care Board and Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers have made efforts that have now succeeded to have the National Institutes of Health intramural research program offer a back-up care program. The program will provide professional caregivers who will either visit their homes or offer an site where care can be offered nearby. This program applies to healthy or mildly ill children and to elderly parents of employees.
The need is based on the fact that caregivers may become ill or go on vacation, the usual day care provision has days off during some weeks, and that children or parents may become mildly ill and not be allowed to atttend their usual day care sites.
We discussed how people handle sick children earlier, and it's clearly still a problem for people who don't have nannies or similar provisions. NIH stated that providing such back-up care is helpful in retaining family-oriented employees, and it increases productivity by keeping days off low. In addition to NIH, Columbia, Princeton, Washington University (St. Louis), and University of Virginia have similar programs, all through the same contractor as NIH uses, Bright Horizons. Other campuses use different providers.
Does your site offer similar options?
cheers,
Laura
Dear Laura,
This issue has been a thorny problem for a long time, so it's nice that various academic and other sites are trying to make it work better. I'm going to look up this Bright Horizons provider that several places use and see if they have a local service. Maybe I can get the university to add it to our benefits if there is one nearby.
MKS
Hi Laura,
There's a child care center, but no sick kids can go there. It's a real hassle on vacation days that are not vacation days for me, as well as sick days. Sometimes I have to stay home unexpectedly.
KR
