The Carolina Women’s Center (CWC) launched a new resource for all employees in September 2016: a Lactation Toolkit that provides an overview of the University’s policies and resources for faculty, staff, and students who are breastfeeding. Accessible and user-friendly, the toolkit provides suggestions for ways in which supervisors and nursing mothers can work together to balance work responsibilities with nursing mothers’ rights to accommodation.
The Toolkit can be downloaded as a pdf from the CWC’s page, part of Parenting@UNC, on pregnancy and lactation resources. The Toolkit is available in its separate components:
- The Case for Breastfeeding
- Lactation Policies for Supervisors
- Lactation Policies for Employees
- Appendices
The toolkit was developed in collaboration with a number of campus partners, including the Faculty Governance Committee on the Status of Women, the Employee Forum, the Faculty Governance Committee on Community and Diversity, the Faculty Governance Faculty Welfare Committee, the Faculty Governance Fixed-Term Faculty Committee, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Chancellor, and the Office of Human Resources. Jonathan Olivares designed the documents.
If you have any questions about the Toolkit, please contact Clare Counihan, Program Coordinator for Faculty & Staff, at clarecounihan[at]unc.edu. She is available to meet with units or departments to discuss accommodations and to talk with individuals about their experiences.
The Lactation Toolkit is one of several initiatives by the CWC to improve resources for caregiving employees at UNC:
- Increasing lactation spaces. If your unit or building would like to add a designated lactation space or needs help identifying an appropriate temporary space, please contact clarecounihan[at]unc.edu and michael.pierce[at]facilities.unc.edu.
- The Parenting@UNC website. Here you can find all the policies, resources, and benefits that support faculty, staff, and students with caregiving responsibilities. The Center plans to rebrand this website to “Caregivers@UNC” and expand the website’s coverage of information about and resources for elder care.
- Workshops & Education. The CWC recently relaunched “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” as a complement to Human Resources’ “Planning for Parental Leave” course. If you could not make “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” please feel free to contact Clare Counihan (clarecounihan[at]unc.edu) with questions.