You're offering so much to think about in every newsletter, Isabelle. I especially appreciated the story about Dr. Autumn Green's efforts to help student parents. I returned to college at age 50 to complete a Bachelor's degree. There were many part-time students; I was in a wonderful interdisciplinary studies program for people returning to college after 7 or more years break (my break was much longer than most). There were many parents with children of varying ages, and I had elder-care responsibilities, too, which were unpredictable (I completed one of my term papers from my mother-in-law's hospital room). I also cared part-time for my grandson - his father, too, was a part-time student. The internet has opened so many opportunities, and it's wonderful to hear from Dr. Green as she works to help student parents. I hope her research encompasses all caregiving students. Many nontraditional students have care responsibilities - for older children / teens, for disabled or elder family members.
My university promoted a ride-sharing app, which I used... it could also have a care-sharing app, so students could meet each other and share/exchange caregiving. Kind of like Co-Abode matches single moms wanting to share housing—students wanting to share/exchange caregiving could find a match and take turns caring for each others' family members. There could also be an app for finding/hiring on-campus students who want to babysit/care for a few hours at a time (I saw a lot of notices posted on hallway bulletin boards, people, including professors, searching for babysitters.) . It would be even better if there were on-campus places made available for students to bring their family member(s) to stay for a few hours (with a designated caregiver) - to do homework, to play games, to exercise. There are so many possibilities.
Hi Catherine. It's always great to hear about specialized college programs for returning students like the one that you attended. Our research protocol for this project doesn't explicitly ask about elder care, but I have been hearing a lot about students who are caregiving for both their older and younger generations at the same time during college. Several colleges offer free subscriptions to caregiving platforms, many of which include both child care and elder/special needs care (a few also include housekeeping and cleaning services as well). Through these subscriptions it is free to use the app or website platform to find a sitter or caregiver, but most require families to pay out-of-pocket for the cost of care. However some colleges budget for student gift cards on these platforms or load a certain number of hourly credits per term, to help offset the cost of care for student parents. There are many different child care apps and platforms. One I just learned about it Komae which allows parents to create a child care exchange network specific to their campus community, and to earn and exchange credits for caring for one-another's children. I'm fascinated to think about how co-abode could be used in similar campus-focused ways to expand co-operative student housing models for single parent students and their children. In total, only 6% of US colleges and universities offer family housing--and student parents need affordable, safe, and stable housing for their families as a baseline for college success, and student run housing co-ops for students and their children seem to be among the most promising strategies. We also look at both full-time/part-time child care centers AND drop-in child care programs (often through models comparable to Ikea's Smallland), family recreation programs, family study rooms, and other campus spaces and events that are designed for students and their children to attend together--many of which also invite the whole family to participate! We try to be as comprehensive and inclusive of as many different kinds of approaches, programs, tools, and strategies as we are able to find on college campuses through the data that we are collecting. We are also careful to include all students who are parents "or acting as a parent, co-parent, or in another regular parental (or similar) caregiving role" (including grandparent and sibling caregivers), as the focus population of our work. Many of these groups have historically been excluded from conversations about student parents, and are not tracked through existing data sources. Where it gets a little trickier is people who are doing elder/special needs care for family members, because this group is not a protected class in the same ways as student parents are within U.S. Higher Education Policy under Title IX. Still we are trying to gather as much information about all of these things as we can find on each college's website--although to be honest, this type of information is often not organized on these sites in ways that are clear and easy to find, and is often not centralized on one page or set of pages. Thus, while reviewing and recording information from websites may seem straightforward, knowing where and how to look for and find this information can be tricky and we had to really develop our training and research protocols to address these challenges. I'm hoping that some colleges and universities will consider how to make this information easier to find and access on their websites in response to our research findings as well! Thanks again for your comments and ideas!
It's great to hear about all these additional aspects of your research, Dr. Green. I'm going to look into Komae and add it to our organization's resources list. Exchanging care with another family is also a wonderful way to make friends and build community. Thank you for your work! By the way, the university where I earned my degree is George Mason University in Fairfax, VA - Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies. My concentration: Human Development, Parenting and Policy.
You're offering so much to think about in every newsletter, Isabelle. I especially appreciated the story about Dr. Autumn Green's efforts to help student parents. I returned to college at age 50 to complete a Bachelor's degree. There were many part-time students; I was in a wonderful interdisciplinary studies program for people returning to college after 7 or more years break (my break was much longer than most). There were many parents with children of varying ages, and I had elder-care responsibilities, too, which were unpredictable (I completed one of my term papers from my mother-in-law's hospital room). I also cared part-time for my grandson - his father, too, was a part-time student. The internet has opened so many opportunities, and it's wonderful to hear from Dr. Green as she works to help student parents. I hope her research encompasses all caregiving students. Many nontraditional students have care responsibilities - for older children / teens, for disabled or elder family members.
My university promoted a ride-sharing app, which I used... it could also have a care-sharing app, so students could meet each other and share/exchange caregiving. Kind of like Co-Abode matches single moms wanting to share housing—students wanting to share/exchange caregiving could find a match and take turns caring for each others' family members. There could also be an app for finding/hiring on-campus students who want to babysit/care for a few hours at a time (I saw a lot of notices posted on hallway bulletin boards, people, including professors, searching for babysitters.) . It would be even better if there were on-campus places made available for students to bring their family member(s) to stay for a few hours (with a designated caregiver) - to do homework, to play games, to exercise. There are so many possibilities.
Hi Catherine. It's always great to hear about specialized college programs for returning students like the one that you attended. Our research protocol for this project doesn't explicitly ask about elder care, but I have been hearing a lot about students who are caregiving for both their older and younger generations at the same time during college. Several colleges offer free subscriptions to caregiving platforms, many of which include both child care and elder/special needs care (a few also include housekeeping and cleaning services as well). Through these subscriptions it is free to use the app or website platform to find a sitter or caregiver, but most require families to pay out-of-pocket for the cost of care. However some colleges budget for student gift cards on these platforms or load a certain number of hourly credits per term, to help offset the cost of care for student parents. There are many different child care apps and platforms. One I just learned about it Komae which allows parents to create a child care exchange network specific to their campus community, and to earn and exchange credits for caring for one-another's children. I'm fascinated to think about how co-abode could be used in similar campus-focused ways to expand co-operative student housing models for single parent students and their children. In total, only 6% of US colleges and universities offer family housing--and student parents need affordable, safe, and stable housing for their families as a baseline for college success, and student run housing co-ops for students and their children seem to be among the most promising strategies. We also look at both full-time/part-time child care centers AND drop-in child care programs (often through models comparable to Ikea's Smallland), family recreation programs, family study rooms, and other campus spaces and events that are designed for students and their children to attend together--many of which also invite the whole family to participate! We try to be as comprehensive and inclusive of as many different kinds of approaches, programs, tools, and strategies as we are able to find on college campuses through the data that we are collecting. We are also careful to include all students who are parents "or acting as a parent, co-parent, or in another regular parental (or similar) caregiving role" (including grandparent and sibling caregivers), as the focus population of our work. Many of these groups have historically been excluded from conversations about student parents, and are not tracked through existing data sources. Where it gets a little trickier is people who are doing elder/special needs care for family members, because this group is not a protected class in the same ways as student parents are within U.S. Higher Education Policy under Title IX. Still we are trying to gather as much information about all of these things as we can find on each college's website--although to be honest, this type of information is often not organized on these sites in ways that are clear and easy to find, and is often not centralized on one page or set of pages. Thus, while reviewing and recording information from websites may seem straightforward, knowing where and how to look for and find this information can be tricky and we had to really develop our training and research protocols to address these challenges. I'm hoping that some colleges and universities will consider how to make this information easier to find and access on their websites in response to our research findings as well! Thanks again for your comments and ideas!
It's great to hear about all these additional aspects of your research, Dr. Green. I'm going to look into Komae and add it to our organization's resources list. Exchanging care with another family is also a wonderful way to make friends and build community. Thank you for your work! By the way, the university where I earned my degree is George Mason University in Fairfax, VA - Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies. My concentration: Human Development, Parenting and Policy.