as part of family-oriented initiatives
The University has announced new initiatives designed to help members of the Yale community with the care of their children while they are at work or in school, including plans to build a new child care center on or near campus and back-up care.
In a letter to members of the Yale community, University Provost Andrew D. Hamilton and Vice President for Finance and Administration John E. Pepper said the child-care enhancements are being made in response to a comprehensive review that involved discussions with individuals from every sector of the Yale community as well as with early childhood development experts, child care providers, peer institutions and others.
"Not surprisingly, all aspects of our review reinforced the central importance to Yale families of quality child-care and underscored the impact that child-care obligations can have on work and scholarship at the University," wrote Hamilton and Pepper. "That said, we learned that the types of child-care services that are used by Yale parents vary among different Yale constituencies. Although the call for an increase in center-based child-care slots stimulated our initial review and remains a key issue, the review repeatedly identified affordability as a central concern for a number of Yale parents. Access to back-up care when usual care providers are unavailable also emerged as a high priority for many Yale families."
As part of this review, the University has created a new position, the director of staff diversity and worklife, with responsibility for coordination and oversight of child-care services available to faculty, staff and students, among other duties.
The other new initiatives include:
* A new child-care center on or near campus that will provide infant-toddler care and a preschool center. The University is currently discussing the operation of the center with a local child-care provider.
* The new facility will include back-up care slots so that members of the University can bring their child(ren) there should their primary child-care provider be unavailable.
* Until back-up care at the new center is available, the University will make in-home back-up care available through an established provider. This new service is expected to be available early in 2006.
* A Yale-affiliated network will be created to expand the capacity and quality of existing center- and family-based child-care in the New Haven area. Experts from the Yale Child Study Center and outside consultants will help support the creation of this network. "One objective of the network will be to provide services that address the unique needs and schedules of Yale families," Hamilton and Pepper wrote.
* The University will provide space and financial support for core staffing for a child-care cooperative operated with parent participation.
* The University will provide support to help current Yale-affiliated child-care programs expand sliding-scale tuition and scholarship assistance.
* Yale will expand informational resources and assistance available to families through the Yale child care coordinator and the WorkLife Office.
In addition to these, the University recently announced that it has enhanced its sick time policy to allow staff members to use accrued sick time to care for a sick child or other family member. This new policy took effect Nov. 1.
The new initiatives supplement existing Yale programs, including four University-affiliated child-care centers: the Calvin Hill Day Care Center & Kitty Lustman-Findling Kindergarten, the Edith B. Jackson Child Care Program, the Phyllis Bodel Childcare Program at the School of Medicine and the Yale Law School Early Learning Program. Through the Yale Early Childhood Education Program, University-affiliated child-care directors and faculty members specializing in early childhood development at the Yale Child Study Center can discuss topics of interest and concern. The Yale Babysitting Service (www.yale.edu/babysitting) links available babysitters and parents. In addition, the University-sponsored flexible spending program enables faculty and staff to fund child-care expenses with pre-tax dollars. (Visit www.yale.edu/hronline/worklife/childcare.html for information about other child-care resources).
Yale is also convening a special subcommittee of the University WorkLife Committee, which will include parents from throughout the campus, to advise on and assist with the new initiatives.
Hamilton and Pepper invite Yale faculty, staff and students to offer comments on child-care issues by sending an email to provost@yale.edu.
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