 Thank you. Okay, so our first speaker is a representative from the Center of Education and Women Plus. Grace, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself before you present? Yeah, hi everyone. My name is Grace Christensen, and I am the student program manager at the Center for the Education of Women Plus, or more commonly known as CW Plus. And we are down, if you're ever looking for our physical offices, we're down on Liberty, just past a vision, and we would love to have you there. But I know it's a bit of a track, so we're happy to connect virtually as well. I'm going to share my screen, but before I do that, I just wanted to make sure to remember to plug in the chat. There is a welcome picnic tomorrow, three to five. It's being co-hosted by CW Plus and also MCASP and the International Center in Northwood. So if you are feeling like some very large connect for in a taco bowl, please bring your family and come help us. Okay, so I'm going to tell you some resources that we offer and then also some that we highlight from around campus. Let's see here. Okay. All right, can everyone see my screen? Great. So the webpage, I'm going to go through our webpage and sort of highlight some resources there. You can get here through our website, cw.umich.edu, and then the advocacy initiative, there's a student caregivers page. So the first thing that I want to highlight, and I'm sort of going to go in the order of things that we hear from caregivers are the most important to them. That's if it seems like I'm jumping around, that's what's going on. And the first is childcare. So I know that Child and Family Resources is another panelist today, so I'm sure they'll give you more details about like the children's centers on campus and the resources available there. So the children's and our website are compiled from HR and they are anything from care around town to like backup care, your kid is home sick sort of thing. And there's also elder care. The other thing that I wanted to highlight is that right now with Child and Family Care, CW Plus is doing weekend preschooler care. So it's Saturday mornings, about three hours. And it's for any UM student who is a caregiver for anyone ages two and a half through five. So after I'm done, I'll pop the link to the interest form in the chat. It's week to week so you can pick and choose what works for you. And it's a $10 registration fee, but if that is prohibitive, we'll leave it. You don't need to build a form or thing just like send me know. We don't need to worry about it. The thing that we hear a lot about is housing. So I think probably a lot of you got information about Northwood when you started but if not a lot of the caregivers that we work with to live in Northwood four and five. And I'm happy or our counselors are happy to work with you to connect you with housing resources if that's something that you're still trying to figure out. So funding, we have a few funding resources. The first is that we are one of the sites on campus that offer emergency funds. So this is if you have an emergent need. If something comes up and or changes. And what would you for that is you fill out a form you meet with one of our social workers on staff to go over your budget and just figure out like how much money you need in your grant. And they work to get that to you. There are some cases on campus that have emergency funding as well. So there's the students and rack them certainly. And the thing I always tell people is that like we all talk to each other. So, if something comes up, I encourage you to reach out to everyone at the same time because you don't know on your end like whose office is getting a lot of requests right and if it's like you get into our counselors first but there's a different place that's a better feel like we'll work together to help you. So, and reach out as soon as you think you might need it. The other thing to know is that we have scholarships available specifically to caregivers. So our scholarships open up in January for the following academic year, and there are a couple of ones that are written like they were written by the funder to be specifically to caregivers. We also have other scholarships and fellowships the fellowships open up in December. And those aren't specific to caregivers but if you are at a place in your research where a fellowship makes a lot of sense for you, I really encourage you to apply. You can also apply to both. Okay, so the next thing you want to highlight is counseling at CW plus we offer virtual telephone in in person career and education counseling. So as I mentioned before I have licensed social workers on staff and so for this they really work with you to like come up with personalized list of resources to address the issues that you're facing with your career and education, or they can talk to you about like how to approach faculty members about if you have a change in your caregiving needs that is going to affect your research and things like that. So for your psychological services, I encourage you to reach out to caps. Of course, if you reach out to one of our social workers and caps is a better fit, they'll immediately connect you. Okay, the next thing I want to highlight is spaces around campus. So, one space that you might be familiar with this in the Shapiro library. It sounds dark and dungeony but it's actually a lovely space. There's a caregiver room and use if you sign up for MCASP you get the code into the room. It's right near the elevators and a bathroom with a changing table and it's just it has kids ice furniture and comfy chairs and you can be loud and yourself and it's a really nice space. And also at our offices, it's a CW plus library. It's not really a library so much as just like an open space with free coffee where you can come and be and we have a playroom as well. And we love to see people there and encourage you to come. We also have been doing a lot of work to get out there called kid kits around campus so lots of units now have little toy boxes so if you want to bring a little person or just somebody who likes a fidget toy with you to an appointment. They'll have something to play with. The last thing that I wanted to highlight is other groups, social support groups. So the one that I am most familiar with is MCASP the Michigan caregivers and student parents organization. And you can there's a link to their sign up page here. And it's just it's a it's a student organization. And I do encourage people to reach out and join. If that's of interest to you. The group that I'm pretty familiar with is the non traditional student community group which is a group run through the transfer center and else in a, but they're welcoming to any students who identify as non traditional and to join that you can contact just to be a Noeba. Okay, I'm going to stop sharing my screen. That is CW plus in a seven minute nutshell. And I will pop that care. We can care for him into the chat. Thank you, Grace. I had no idea that we should apply to sort of all emergency funding at once just so that like the load can be sort of weighed by all three or multiple like spaces at at the same time to best serve like the student. That was really helpful and important information. Thank you for sharing that. So we will have as our second speaker, a representative from Rackham Mallory, would you please share a little bit about yourself before you present. Yes, thank you. Good afternoon everybody my name is Mallory Martin Ferguson and I serve as the director for graduate student and program consultation services in Rackham. My name so we often call ourselves G specs, but the name is meant to kind of allude to the fact that we work with both students and programs around issues or concerns that come up during a graduate students kind of career and that could be something that's very specific to an academic policy, academic progress question, or it could be something really broad around, hey, I'm disclosing that I'm going to become a parent and I'm not sure how best to do that or what is most helpful. I don't have my department or what resources are available to me so it could be really specific kind of short term things or more long term kind of just kind of consultation and problem solving matters as well. We really kind of I would say run the spectrum of support that we're able to offer be it just kind of that one on one, you know, one time meeting or ongoing support and consultation for your need. So that just based upon Grace's presentation we did receive some of the student caregiver ally kits and they have been put to use in our offices so if you come to G specs, know that we are kind of a student parent and caregiver safe space and we already have kind of the toys and supplies and products kind of at our disposal ready for you and your family so I will go ahead and share my screen I just have two slides that I thought would be relevant for folks. I saw in the poll earlier that a lot of people had questions about like the financial component of things. And while G specs can be there to offer generalized support help navigate kind of some academic nuances related to being a student parent and caregiver. We also have some specific ways in which we can help financially or help kind of coordinate some of that support as Grace mentioned. So Rackham does have a set of emergency funds available for students. The max award amount is $2500 for eligible expenses. We kind of have these delineated by affiliation or role and so master students are eligible for one award during their time at Michigan and PhD students are eligible for two. So eligible expenses as well as the application can be found on the Rackham website. But essentially, if this is a fund for kind of unanticipated or emergent needs that may be coming up for you so a lot of times this is medical expenses, dental expenses, unanticipated travel because of medical emergency or having to attend, you know, funerary services for a family member. So anything that is kind of abrupt and impacting kind of your, your bottom line so to speak, would be something that emergency funds would be eligible for. We have helped, you know, students who might have a need greater than this $2500 by collaboration with CEW sometimes the Dean of Students Office, and even the International Center has some funds available for students as well. So if there's a question, I would encourage you to reach out, you know, to one of these resources and just consult and problem solve around your specific need and what might be most helpful and beneficial for you to include in an application to ensure its success. One of the other like very specific areas that our office has oversight on is accommodations for graduate students with disabilities. And so for folks who find themselves in a GSI or GSSA role and have a demonstrated and kind of diagnosed disability, you would be able to request an accommodation if needed for that specific role with this office. We also work with GSRAs regarding this, even though they're not officially kind of part of that category of employment in the GEO contract, we do kind of treat the process the same for GSRA roles as well. And then any sort of academic accommodations are processed with SSD, which is our services for students with disabilities office. But there again, we also kind of consult and problem solve around what will be my most helpful, you know, kind of for a graduate student in the classroom or related to their employment. And then the other bit of resources that might be helpful as a student parent or caregiver is just to know that we have a few policy and accommodation periods that you may be eligible for at some point in the future, depending upon the circumstances of life and also of graduate school. But there are four types of leave of absence. These apply to PhD students only because of the continuous enrollment policy master students aren't subjected to that same type of RACM policy. But if you are a master student and need to step away, engaging in a consultation with your program or with this office is highly recommended. So there's a personal leave which is kind of one term, no questions asked, no documentation needed that you could apply for and take at any time. You can do that once during your PhD career, and again only for a term. The medical leave of absence could be up to two years, one term to two terms, no more than four consecutive terms for a medical leave of absence. And sometimes we find it necessary to step away from our academic program to seek treatment or to engage in other type of rehabilitation or just diagnostic processes. And so the medical leave is set up for that. It requires supplemental documentation from a medical provider and does have continuation of RAC care health insurance during that time. Maybe of relevance to this group is the family necessity or dependent care leave of absence. In this scenario, a leave of absence could also be requested for one term or up to four consecutive terms. If there was a need to kind of care for a family member that could be a child or dependent in some capacity. We've had folks who have needed it to care for a child based upon disruption to school or based upon other kind of medical concerns that were happening with the child or for parents if they find themselves kind of caring for another dependent family member. CEW has been an amazing partner for this as well. And so if being on family necessity or dependent care leave is related to direct care for a child, CEW and RACM will engage in a cost share and split the cost of that grad care to have that insurance continue for the student and their family at that time. And then military service is the last leave of absence space in which if you receive active orders and are kind of deployed or call to service in some capacity, the leave of absence would be for that duration of the time away in service. And then the last relevant thing I wanted to highlight is that we do have a parental accommodation policy. So this is something that my office kind of oversees the administration of. It is not a leave of absence, but it is an accommodation period. And so essentially what that is is a time of reduced academic expectations and an awareness on behalf of the program that that's occurring. Some students, you know, have a child or, you know, their family expand to some capacity, and they never disclose that to the program and that is absolutely kind of your choice. This accommodation policy was created to provide a safeguard for the students so that there was awareness of kind of maybe a bit of a change to your academic progress during a set amount of time, as well as a timeline that extends your degree by one year. And so that needs to be requested at time of birth or adoption. It can't be requested, you know, kind of after the fact to say, oh, well, when I was in my second year, you know, I had a child. It needs to happen kind of at that time, but then provides you a little bit of a window to address, you know, kind of that impact to your academic progress because of stepping away or stepping down in some capacity from your academic expectations. So kind of partner parent, either for birth or adoption can receive up to six weeks for that time, and then kind of birth parents can receive up to eight weeks for that time as well. And that would just require, again, a verification that you're working with a provider. And that gets submitted. And we have had graduate student couples who each of them have applied for parental accommodation based upon, you know, kind of their role and then the necessary and requested time away. We always welcome questions, consultations, just one on one meetings. And so if there is a question or a concern or you just want to kind of talk through some things, you're always able to reach out to G specs. I'll stop sharing my screen to just engage in a conversation with us and do some problem solving. Sometimes I've worked with students to say my program doesn't even know that there's a parental accommodation policy and I'm getting some pushback around even, you know, taking some time away. Or I'm worried about disclosing, you know, that I'm a pregnant student and I'm not sure what to do. What support can you offer or what offices can I work with to help with further understanding right and accommodation so it can really be very broader specific depending upon your need as I've said before so That's G specs. Thank you, Mallory. I did not know that some leaves allow for benefits to be to be carried over like wall. We may not be like it's still enrolled in or still taking classes or actively a part of the program that we could still potentially like have access to our benefits I think that's incredible sharing. So now our third speaker is a representative from the Children's Center. Jenna would you please tell us a little bit about yourself before you present. Hi, everyone. Thank you Sam. My name is Jenna Wicks, and I am an enrollment coordinator for the children's centers. We have three locations here on campus, and we serve children ages zero to five. In addition to enrollment. I also oversee the child care tuition grant, which is what I'm going to be focusing on a little bit more today. So the child care tuition grant is a program that was originally started to help make the cost of the U of M Children's Center is more affordable for eligible families. I think that a lot of times people see the price of our childcare centers and they just don't even apply or get on the wait list because it is expensive. So this is to try and make it more affordable. We, the child care tuition grant is available for any university affiliated family. So if you are a student staff faculty visiting scholar, you are eligible to apply. The grant can only be used towards one of the university children's centers and specifically the Ann Arbor centers. So you would need to be enrolled in a U of M Children's Center in order to receive the child care tuition grant. The grant is eligible families are based on your household income and your family size. And I will share a link in the chat to just with our website where you can find more information about the childcare tuition grant. There's also just general financial resources for childcare on there, but it has the, that button here, it has the information for the grant application for the grant and the income limits. So currently our grant families, there's three different tiers. And so the families are receiving between 10% and 30% discount from their childcare tuition, which I know doesn't seem like much. Our budget is pretty small. So we do encourage students to apply for the childcare subsidy before they fill out the childcare tuition grant. We are typically able to give an additional percentage on top of the subsidy up to a specific percentage. So let's say the subsidy covers 50% of your childcare tuition, we could add an additional, you know, 20% to that to cover a larger portion of the tuition. We also have a new partnership with CEW, which I know Grace mentioned, so we do offer Saturday care for preschool aged children, which has been a new program and I think it's been going well. In addition to that, we have a program for student parents of preschool aged children, so that would be ages three and up, where we guarantee 10 spots for student parents. We have come to realize that while enrolling at the children's centers, we have a very long waitlist and often, you know, professors and staff may be on the waitlist longer just because they have been living here in town and can anticipate when they would need care, because students might, you know, not get accepted into the program until they need care. And so we have kind of given this priority to 10 slots, specifically for preschool aged so you just three and up for enrollment at one of our centers, which has been a great challenge that we've started the last couple of years. In addition to giving that guaranteed enrollment, we also have been working with the students with the financial coverage and so they would receive childcare subsidy, the grant, and an additional $100 a month from CEW. So it really covers close to 85 to 90% of the childcare cost. So I know that's been a great program for some of our student parents. So we guarantee 10 spots, but this year we've been very successful. We have closer to 15 student parents that are currently enrolled in our three programs. And so I'm hoping that that has created a, you know, a more stable and a good kind of resource for other parents to connect and have this good childcare resource. The application, you do need to reapply each year, if you are continuing in the program, but it is a rolling application and so if you are not offered enrollment until January of 2024 you could apply for the grant at that time. As long as you meet our income guidelines, you will receive the grant unless, you know, you have other funding like the subsidy that's covering 100% of the cost. That's, we're a smaller program than the others. So I don't have a lot more information to share about the childcare tuition grant, but I'm always happy to help answer questions. And if you have questions about the children's centers as well, I'm happy to answer that. So thank you so much, Sam, for putting us together. Thank you, Jenna. I had no idea that 10 slots were offered in that 15 this year for guaranteed enrollment. That is such a blessing for folks. Thank you for sharing this. Okay, so now our fourth speaker is a representative from the Office of Financial Aid. Monet, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself before you present. All right, great. Well, thanks so much, Sam. My name's Monet Tiedemann. I'm the assistant director for special programs over in the Office of Financial Aid. So you might be talking to me if you, you know, have questions about the childcare subsidy. That's one of my special programs that I work with. And that's what I'm here today to talk about primarily. So let me share my screen real quick. And great. I hope you can see my childcare subsidy presentation. Okay. Okay, so childcare subsidy. You know, gosh, it's nice kind of following after everyone, you know, as they're, you know, especially Jenna talking about the childcare subsidy. But this is something that we can provide that you can apply for just to help you find it. There's lots of information about the childcare subsidy and kind of all this information I'm going over today. You can find on our website. If you just go to like the Office of Financial Aids website, you go to that types of aid up there. And then you click on that childcare subsidy link right there. And it'll take you to this page where you'll see all of this information. But I'm going to go over some of that with you. So what is this childcare subsidy? Really, it's a need-based grant program that's designed to help subsidize the costs of a licensed childcare program or childcare expenses for students for their young children. It's administered through our office, but it's under the direction of the provost office. So who is eligible for this program? You have to be a U of M Ann Arbor student. You need to be enrolled at least half time in a degree program. There is kind of this special status consideration for the NEDR. So it's the non-enrollment degree required status that a lot of professional grad students will have from their program during the spring and summer. During those periods of time where you aren't an enrolled student, but you're expected to be working on your degree like requirements. And so that that NEDR status is something that would be put on to your to your account by your department. And then if you have that status, even though you're not enrolled during the term, you still are eligible for that childcare subsidy. So you also need to your childcare to be eligible for the subsidy. You also need to be in a licensed by the state of Michigan childcare facility. You can for children who are 12 and under or if you're a parent of a child with special needs, it's under the age of 19 for there. Either we're also some of the requirements is that either you do not have a partner parent or if you do have a partner parent that that partner is enrolled at least half time in a degree earning program, or they're working at least part time, you know, at least 20 hours a week. And that you need regular child care in order to pursue your academic pursuits, and that you qualify for need based financial aid. And so that means that you demonstrate the financial need. We'll talk a little bit more about that in just a bit, and that you're meeting satisfactory academic progress requirements as determined by like the federal government that they put out there. So what does it mean that it's need based right so like you have the need for this funding for your childcare expenses. Absolutely everyone does. But there's a certain kind of like need as defined by the by the Department of Education. So it's so educational expenses just on their own like that is also something that's regulated by the Department of Ed, where there are certain categories of things that can be included in your overall cost of attendance. It has an educational expense and and childcare is one of those costs, because if you need, you know, to be able to pursue your degree do the things you need to do as a student, you need childcare, then that can be added in. Where need comes into play is it's really determined by it's by determined by subtracting your expected family contribution that EFC that's determined by your FAFSA when you submit that each year. So we take your overall cost of attendance that has all those educational expenses in there. We subtract your EFC, and then we also subtract any other like departmental funding that you have to get what your need is. So you can see in my example there right like you have a $50,000 cost of attendance, your EFC is zero. Okay, but you have $45,000 of departmental funding. It means then that your need is $5,000. And that's like what we could give you the subsidy for him. At EFC it's determined by the FAFSA. If you're an international student and you're not eligible to file a FAFSA, you are eligible, like, potentially for the child care subsidy. We just need to find out some information about your financial picture. And so we'll, we'll kind of determine what your EFC would kind of be like, given that that financial information. How do you apply? So fill out your FAFSA. If you're a FAFSA eligible, great fill out that FAFSA. If you're, if you're an international student, don't fill out the FAFSA, but you'll all need to fill out that child care subsidy application. The application itself it's found on that website that I that I showed there for you on the Office of Financial Aid page. Just over this past year, we've really streamlined the process. So it's all kind of through like a team dynamics form that you fill out. If you're an international student, that's where you input your, your income and like asset questions. But all of that is available on the website. We'll be reviewing or we have reviewed fall and winter applications starting in July of this year. We start reviewing spring and summer applications around April. There really isn't like a hard deadline of when you must get your application in by, except for like the end of that term. So if you want a subsidy for the fall term, you need to get the application in before the fall term ends. But then obviously the later that you submit it, the, you know, the later you're going to get that money. So, let's say you've submitted your application, we've tentatively approved you based on that application. We'll send an email out to you and then we'll also send it's a licensed child care provider verification form. And this is really where you're because it does need to be a state of Michigan licensed child care provider. This is kind of that verification. Your child care provider will need to sign off on it. They give us the license number that we look up to make sure that yes they are, they are licensed and it's up to date. That's where your like monthly or weekly costs will be. So that way we can know that, you know, that we're giving you an appropriate amount of the subsidy. And when we get that form that's actually what we use to add those child care costs to your overall cost of attendance. And then once we verify those costs, we add those costs to your cost of attendance and then we award the subsidy. Let's say for instance and there are sometimes where, you know, like the, the term amount of the subsidy kind of the maximum amount that you could get for the term is more than what your actual child care costs are going to be. And then you're going to cover what your actual child care costs are so it could be reduced a little bit from like the maximum amount. How much are the maximum amounts. Like I said, this is truly a subsidy. It's not necessarily meant to be able to cover 100% of your costs. I know child care costs are a lot they're pretty exorbitant. So yeah, definitely not meant to cover all of it. So, but there are you can see here it's it's per term that it's broken out into but for one kid 3567 for two kids 5230 and then for three or more it's 6896 per term. So you can double that for like if you're applying for both fall and winter. So we look at, you know, each year these, the subsidy amounts do increase and we tie them really to like the U of M child care center rate increases each year. But this is what it is for 2324. So it doesn't apply to yourself once we awarded to you. It is like a direct refund thing so it doesn't apply towards any of the charges on your account. You'll just see a refund for that child care subsidy amount. I have you out there. If you are an international student. The subsidy amount will first pay towards those 1042 s taxes that are just kind of taken off of the other kind of set aside for you for any payments that you receive. And so you might see that your like refund amount of the subsidy is less than what the actual award is for because of that like tax thing. If you have any questions about that, like, that's a good question for payroll. We really recommend setting up direct deposit. It just means that, you know, the money gets to you sooner. If you don't have direct deposit set up, then it gets sent to you via paper check and it's to like the most recent address that you have on file, which might not necessarily be your actual address. So that's why direct deposits really good. Disbursement kind of runs. One of the first disbursement of the term happens 10 days before the start of the term. So that's kind of like, you know, the first fall payment started, you know, it was like back in late August. And then once that happens. Financial aid processes every Wednesday night. So let's say you apply for your award. I give you the subsidy today. You wouldn't see that funding dispersed or like refunded out until like after next Wednesday night. So just a tip about financial aid in general, if you're waiting for some financial aid, it's going to be like on a Wednesday after a Wednesday night kind of disbursement run. Here's a question. Like, what if you don't qualify for the subsidy? What if you don't, you know, you don't have a licensed childcare provider but you're still paying expenses for childcare, because that's a thing. So there are ways that we can still add those costs into your budget into your cost of attendance, because like I said before, that's a it's a valid educational expense. That when we add those costs to your to your cost of attendance or budget. It means that it's like making room for potential other funding from somewhere else, like, you know, CW plus like Rackham, like an educational loan. So that's why it can be advantageous to work with us to have us increase your budget, even if you don't qualify for the subsidy necessarily. All we'll need is just documentation of the expense to be able to add that in. When we reach out to our office, we'll start doing those kinds of budget adjustments starting after October 1. So if you reach out to us, we have an educational expense form that you can fill out. And so, in just a couple weeks, reach out to us and we can help you there. So really, if we're here. If you have questions, our office we have a dedicated financial aid childcare subsidy email address that you'll see here. And if you, if you email that it's going to be me answering your email so if you have any questions for me please feel free to like send it to that email address. But in really just our office we're always here if you have any, any questions about your financial aid childcare subsidy or not. Right. Thank you. Thank you. I learned so much. I had no idea that we could work with you to adjust our budget because I know that doesn't often reflect real life. And so I'm grateful to learn that. Okay, everyone. Thank you for being here. We are now going to transition to a Q&A where you can ask our panelists any questions that you may have. As you gather your thoughts, my colleague is going to place our evaluation survey in the chat. Would you please do me a favor and just open it up open up the link now so that you'll have the tab ready and waiting for you when we're done. Okay, thank you for doing that. And I also want to ask that you please change your name to the name that you've registered with so that we know that you're here. Okay, what questions do you have our panelists, you can type them into the chat or you can raise your hand through zoom and ask it yourself. Yeah, I have a question. Yeah. So I'm, I'm curious about about a founding of great because my situation my situation is that my wife and my new born daughter, they stay in Taiwan. And so I am planning to maybe fly twice or three times a year back to Taiwan and take care of them. And so the flight ticket, and also the rent in an upper, I have to pay for them. So, I'm wondering for these type of situations, what kind of scholarship or grant they, I can help I can apply it in my situation like this, any suggestions about that. Yeah, so this is my question. Thank you. Can we just jump in and say. Yes, please. Okay. Thank you for the question and that sounds difficult to be so far away from home and a newborn. And so I would say the rack of emergency fund could certainly be something to consider I guess my only recommendation to would be to really be mindful of what that request is and so just travel to go home in and of itself isn't necessarily an eligible expense, as many students are far away from home and loved ones. But if there's a need for care or support or something happens with your wife and child and you are needed there, then that would be I think something that the emergency fund in particular from record would be able to assist with. Okay, I see. Thank you. Yes. Similar to the CW plus. I mean, I always say like I, I, I can't tell you without, you know, looking at your specific situation. It would be a counselor, but it's for unplanned expenses. So if something happened, and you needed to get there, then that is something that certainly has been covered in the past. If it's, you know, you're going to go three times a year. And I think that would be a conversation that I would encourage you to have with one of our counselors, but they might help you frame it a little differently. Okay, thank you. I don't want to put you on this. Oh, do you have. Well, no, I mean, honestly, I was going to say, unfortunately, there's not really anything from our office. There really would be something more that you can kind of get from a department for that kind of funding. I just wanted to put that out there. But what we can do my office financial aid is that we could potentially add in the cost of travel home, like we do have kind of allowances for just travel home over the course of the year. And so that could come in to kind of like build room and for funding, if need be. So you say there's an opportunity to afford a travel expense or Yeah, it's, it's not really like we don't give you funding, but we can add the cost to your cost of attendance, which then kind of like when your cost of attendance is larger, it means that you, you know, have kind of like the capacity for more room for funding. So that's kind of what financial aid can do in this situation, but we wouldn't have any funding per se for you, unfortunately. Okay, thank you. You have a question. Yes, thank you. Two quick questions one. If our financial situation has changed significantly since we submitted the FAFSA is that something we can call or email and talk about. For consideration and then the second question is What is the the purpose of the 75 the requirement for 75% in childcare for the term and how was how was that determined. Yeah, good questions. So, yes, you can always reach out to our office if you know if you're a financial situation that's on the FAFSA because fast is always operating like two tax years behind. So right for this year, it's using 2021 tax returns. If your situation is different than that. Yeah, please read out reach out to our office. And, you know, there are ways that we can reevaluate your aid get you would, you know, potentially, you know, change your EFC to like what it is to reflect like today's situation for you. That said, if you're a grad student that EFC doesn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of the kind of financial aid you get from our office grad students you just get like $20,500 federal unsubsidized loan, no matter what. But if you need like more need built into your. I don't know if you need more need to show a department that you have that need, then that's where it might be beneficial to to work with us. That 75% rule of the term it really is something that kind of like was put in place like through the provost office. So, I mean, it's really the intent that if I cannot speak to like the full reasoning behind it but from my understanding is that it's really just like, if we're giving you funding we want to make sure that that like your kid that you that your kids been in care for the, the majority of the term that we're giving you the funding for. And so that's why that 75% kind of threshold is in there. So that that's definitely my take on it so don't don't speak for the provost office with this one. Thank you. Sorry, I don't have a camera in my office computer. But this is like a question or net. So, until what kind of age do we can ask for the childcare subsidy. So my kid is going to turn well turns five in November. So my plan is for him to stay like in the North Campus childcare. So if he's in like the North Campus childcare, I would be able to ask for that subsidy. And even I mean really just any licensed childcare up until the age of 12. So kind of through elementary school, really, you know, it's been recognition of the fact that families need so even once they start, you know, full time school that, you know, the families student caregivers still need, you know, childcare before and after school potentially. And so the subsidy can help for those expenses as well. So up until the age of 12. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Hi all Rebecca asks, has there been consideration to remove the licensed child, the licensed care provider requirement from the childcare subsidy. I have a question. I. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, there has been this conversation this has been kind of, again, a little bit larger than me and, you know, my decisions on this but yes, I believe that this has been discussed at the provost level and at like the highest level of financial aid and unfortunately for now that, you know, the licensed childcare provider in the state of Michigan stands. There has been a little bit of movement recently towards looking at if if a student is in a U of M sponsored field placement. That that where they're outside of the state of Michigan, that childcare that we can consider the subsidy for those particular students. Right now that's just a very small program subset of, you know, field placements that that qualify under that. But there's definitely this discussion that happens every year. I wish it was broader than than what it was. But for now it's that licensed childcare providing, you know, provider for the subsidy. Maly, I have a question about the parental accommodation policy. You said that it needs to be communicated at birth or at adoption. Can it scheduled. Does it have to occur at birth or at adoption or for instance like if I'm the non birthing parent and my birthing and the birthing parent had gets eight weeks can I schedule my weeks to start after their eight weeks ends. That's a wonderful logistical question. Sam. And it really is how the policy is laid out is kind of immediately following the birth of the child. And that has been a question that has come up. And so what we've tried to do with students is to problem solve sequencing of maybe that parental accommodation period and potential family. Necessity or dependent care leave of absence for one or other of those parents. And depending upon the timing of things sometimes that has worked out really nicely, or one parent elects to really like lean into that six or eight weeks and another one only does like one or two. I always encourage a birthing parent to take as much as is available to you. So that eight weeks. And because you know you just don't know and you'd rather kind of have it in my perspective then then not. So there can be some problem solving around timing but the kind of policy language is immediately following kind of the adoption and or birth. Thank you. I have a question for you all. One is undocumented. Does that affect their ability to access the resources you talked about today. No. Yeah, yeah. I know that in the past it has. I've run into some difficulties with folks and so that's wonderful to hear. Thank you. Sorry just another thing I wanted to mention so that wouldn't affect the childcare tuition grant, but something else it's a little bit different that I noticed when I'm talking about the subsidy so with the grant we do not require. We do not require both parents to be working or in school so that is something that's a little bit different. We've just found we have a lot of international families at our center and sometimes you know if they don't have a work visa they can't work, but still want to be able to be a part of our program so that is a little bit different with the childcare subsidy, or sorry, not childcare, childcare tuition grant as well. So we don't have that requirement for both parents. Thank you and I appreciate that explanation. All right, if there are no other questions I think that's the time that we have for today. Thank you. Your participation and not someone to thank Grace and Mallory and Jenna and Monet for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today. The recording of this event would be sent to you once it's been processed that takes a few weeks. And remember when you get the opportunity for a short break please just pop. So that we can continue to improve our programming for you. Okay, that's all. Thank you. Take care of yourselves.