UW Wellness Resources
UW has developed many new resources to help managers, employees and caregivers navigate the workplace during COVID-19. These resources incorporate findings ranging from COVID-19 Caregiver Task Force and HR best practices to UW Medicine and UW Resilience Lab.
Working during COVID-19 – This page includes clickable links to teleworking during COVID-19, policy updates, time away from work, return to onsite work, caring for self and family, UW Carelink during COVID-19, workforce reduction strategies, employee flexibility support, flu shot clinics and POD’s virtual autumn quarter.
Upcoming Events
The UW Center for Child and Family Well-Being offers a variety of free online workshops for parents and children to promote resilience and well-being, address adversity and inequity and cultivate mindfulness and compassion. You can sign up for updates about future UW Center for Child and Family Well-Being events and resources or check out their online event calendar for opportunities.
- 10/28 – UW Carelink workshops: coordinated and facilitated by the UW HR Benefits department, these workshops will help you understand all the different Carelink resources available to you
- 11/9 – Drop in Session: Gathering the Mind, Body, and Heart
- Stress, Trauma, and Resilience: Cultivating Productive Teams in a Post-COVID Era– Stress and trauma may impact individuals and teams negatively, leading to lower work productivity, interpersonal conflict, and negative health outcomes. Recent events have increased stress and heightened the impact of trauma across all parts of our community, including the workplace.This FREE training will help supervisors understand signs of stress and trauma and provide practical tools to help team members build resilience and effectiveness at work.
- November training dates:
- Part 1: November 18, 2020 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm (PST)
- Part 2: November 19, 2020 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm (PST)
- December training dates:
- Part 1: December 9, 2020 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm (PST)
- Part 2: December 10, 2020 from 12:00 – 1:30 pm (PST)
- November training dates:
When registering, please be sure to sign up for both sessions. If you cannot attend both sessions in the same month, you can sign up for Part 2 in a different month.
Personal Resilience and Wellbeing
Resources that include everything from fitness and mindfulness classes to managing stress, to practicing resilience coping skills:
- Self-care: Making your own physical, mental, and emotional health your priority will help you support family, friends, and neighbors.
- Virtual fitness and mindfulness classes provided by the Whole U allows you virtually join your UW community in practicing mindfulness and staying active; this webpage is updated every Friday at 4 p.m., and classes are posted by the day of the week.
- The Whole U: Free COVID-19 anxiety support is available through the app Sanvello. Sanvello has made premium access to their mobile app free throughout the pandemic. Sanvello’s offerings focus on teaching coping skills and engaging users in practices and exercises to better manage stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- The UW Resilience Lab is at the helm of promoting mental health and well-being at the UW through education, research partnerships, and a range of programs and initiatives. The UW Resilience Lab is providing opportunities for students, staff, and faculty to learn and practice resilience coping skills to help us through the COVID-19 crisis.
- COVID-19 Employee Emergency Fund: Eligible employees may request funds for a critical, temporary, and unforeseen financial hardship due to COVID-19.
- Financial well-being: As a UW employee you have access to resources that can help you understand your options, request financial support and address your immediate needs.
- UW Medicine: Right as Rain is a digital publication dedicated to providing truthful and down-to-earth health and wellness information.
- UW Carelink during COVID-19: UW CareLink is your employee assistance program, and it connects you with a list of resources including counseling, legal advice, financial guidance, work-life solutions and management support. Contact information for Carelink (available 24/7): 866-598-3978.
- COVID-19 financial resources: A list of resources to help navigate finances during COVID-19; you can also call to make an appointment with a financial advisor
- COVID-19 legal resources: A list of resources to help navigate legal issues during COVID-10; you can call to get a free 30-minute consultation with an in-house lawyer or get a referral to a local lawyer with a 25 percent reduction in fees.
- Death of a loved one: In the unfortunate circumstance where you have lost a loved one, UW employees, their dependents, and their household members can turn to UW CareLink for support.
- For managers and teams: UW Carelink provides support through traumatic workplace incident response, manager consultations, and webinars (COVID-19 Webinar Series)
Employee Flexibility
- UW HR’s COVID-19 Employee Flexibility
- Effectively managing flexible work arrangements: Manager tools for evaluating how to remove barriers to help an employee perform their job duties.
- Job share considerations and guide: Employees and managers should consider resources at this link and incorporate best practices when proposing a job share.
- Manager toolkit to support caregivers: Considerations for managers and departments to support remote caregivers.
- Toolkit to support caregivers: Tools for caregivers to understand ways to balance performing their job duties and caregiver responsibilities.
- Caregiver FAQs: Answers to common questions about flexibility options for caregivers.
- Caregiver flexibility and time off options: An at-a-glance summary of caregiver flexibility and time-off options.
SafeCampus: 206-685-7233 (available 24/7) – Call SafeCampus anytime — no matter where you work or study — to anonymously discuss safety and well-being concerns for yourself or others.
Time Away from Work: Covers the expanded Family and Medical Leave Act, Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act, the expanded Shared Leave Program, support for staff on furloughs, unemployment benefits, and time off resources related to various COVID-19 scenarios
- Expanded Family and Medical Leave Act: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) expands the existing federal Family & Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to cover child care responsibilities.
- Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act: The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) establishes Emergency Paid Sick Time Off for employees who are unable to work or telework due to qualifying COVID-19 related reasons for absences between April 1, 2020, and Dec. 31, 2020.
- Shared Leave Program expanded to cover COVID-19: Learn how the state of Washington’s Shared Leave Program has been expanded to cover COVID-19 related absences.
- Time off resource summary: This page summarizes the time-off options for various scenarios related to COVID-19.
Teleworking During COVID: This provides guidance for supervisors, employees and departments designed to help set up temporary remote work arrangements quickly and successfully.
- Tips for departments with widespread teleworking: Suggestions for departments and teams moving quickly in response to COVID-19.
- Teleworking tips for employees: Tips to help you be successful working from home.
- Professional development and wellness while working from home: A list of professional development and wellness activities that will enhance job skills, further education, and help you take advantage of UW resources you may not have fully explored.
- Supervisor checklist for supporting teleworking: This checklist will help you to establish a foundation for effective teamwork, continued productivity, and service to the UW community.
Caregiver Resources
- Adult and elder care: These resources can help you plan to talk with older adults who may need assistance, find care alternatives, and help you look after your own needs so you can continue supporting those you love.
- Child care: Find back-up care options, understand leave use, and find resources to support child and family well-being during periods of remote instruction, school/program closures and telework arrangements.
- Webinar: “Your Child’s well-being during COVID-19”
- School and child care support resources compiled UW Medicine on child care, financial supports, and tutoring.
- Komae: Cooperative Childcare App that provides a flexible care management option for working parents at UW. On Komae, parents swap “Komae Points” as a way to manage and coordinate care for their children within a trusted network.
- COVID-19 Caregiver Task Force: President Cauce charged a task force with recommending enhancements that UW can make to better support employee and student caregivers during the 2020-21 academic year.
- Schools Out Washington’s map of open youth programs and school aged child cares shows sites state-wide that are offering child care and youth programming during COVID-19.
- Online Tutoring – King County, Pierce County and Sno-Isle library members have free access to online tutoring for K-12 learners. These libraries, along with Timberland Regional Library, have reciprocal agreements that may allow you to use online services from a library that is not your own. Please see your library’s membership page for more information.
- King County Library System members have unlimited, free access to com Each session is 20-30 minutes long and is designed to help learners with one to two questions. Learn about Tutor.com through King County Libraries.
- Pierce County and Sno-Isle Libraries members have access to HelpNow, a live, online professional tutoring service. Learn more on the Pierce County Library System and Sno-Isle Libraries HelpNow offers tutoring and homework help in Spanish for any subject it supports in English.
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