On Dec. 1, Johns Hopkins University will begin offering financial assistance for child care costs to doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows and trainees. Those individuals will also have access to a local child care referral service and to Care.com, which helps secure other caregiving services for hire.
Provost Sunil Kumar and Heidi Conway, vice president for human resources, shared the news in an email to eligible individuals, saying, "In order to pursue excellence together, we recognize the need to support the well-being of both our direct affiliates and their families as we all balance responsibilities at Johns Hopkins and at home."
The additional benefits will be available to full-time doctoral students, full-time postdocs, residents, and interns.
Those individuals will be able to use the Dependent Care Voucher Program that is currently available to full-time employees. It offers up to $5,000 per year to cover the cost of licensed dependent care to those with a child under the age of 6 and a net taxable income of less than $50,000 per family. Details are available on the Work, Life and Engagement website.
In addition, qualifying students, fellows, and trainees can now take advantage of the Maryland Family Network's LOCATE: Child Care program, an enhanced child care resource and referral service developed for Johns Hopkins. It helps to identify care that meets a family's needs for location, cost, and schedule, and provides advice on how to select quality care. Those scholars are also invited to use Care@Work, which includes access to the Care.com website and a network of caregivers for child care, adult and senior care, pet sitting, housekeeping, tutoring, and emergency backup care.
These additional benefits complement the policy instituted last year to give full-time graduate students and postdoctoral trainees up to eight weeks of accommodations to care for a new child, Kumar and Conway wrote in their email.
They said, "We recognize the vital contributions that each of you makes here at Johns Hopkins and will continue to seek ways to make our university a vibrant and supportive place to work and study."
Posted in Benefits+Perks
