August 10, 2019

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Business August 10, 2019

Ex-Google Employee Leaves Company With Some Parental Policy Advice

NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with Cristina Tcheyan about her decision to leave her job at Google to raise her children — and how companies can be more supportive of working parents.



MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It’s an election year, as you know, and the big issues – health care, the climate, immigration, gun safety – are finding their way into the national conversation. But when it comes to one big issue, parental leave or family leave, companies are still the ones really making policy in how much leave, latitude and support they offer. And many caregivers, even ones with good jobs and benefits, are finding it’s still hard to make it all work.

That’s Cristina Tcheyan’s story. She decided to leave her job at Google to stay home with her youngest, but she didn’t go quietly. In true tech fashion, she did the research and sent it all to the company’s CEO and head of HR when she resigned in March, outlining ways she thinks the company can do more to support working parents. She posted her findings on Medium. And when we caught up with her, she told us, when it comes to policies that help working parents, child care at work is a good start.

CRISTINA TCHEYAN: I came to think of onsite child care as one of the really more important ones, but it has to be in kind of in combination with paid family leave and then also kind of a conversation around flexibility at work. But basically, I found that certainly smaller companies were having really good success with it. And on their books, it was totally paying for itself. And then you would see in their leadership and their senior manager levels where, you know, many companies see a drop-off in the number of women, and more diversity kind of falls off there. Those companies were maintaining at least a gender diversity ratio of more like 50/50.

Again, at a small company, it didn’t cost a lot. And then I kind of looked at my company that is incredibly profitable and makes many billions of dollars in profit a quarter. And that might be quite possible at a company like mine. And then I found, you know, a case study about another very large company with more employees than Google that had done or had tried it.

MARTIN: So there are a couple other things that were interesting. I mean, the piece is very interesting. But you said pay for interviewees’ child care so that they can attend onsite interviews. And you said that, particularly with underrepresented groups, lack of access to child care may even keep them from interviewing from even interviewing. That’s an interesting idea.

TCHEYAN: Yeah. This is a very active conversation. Certainly in tech, where, you know, where I work, where it’s very underrepresented in all kinds of categories, but there’s an active conversation, and there’s a lot of intention around having a more diverse team. That’s good for us. That’s good for our users. And it struck me in looking at all of this stuff. And then it’s really relatable when you think about it. But sometimes you’re in a position where you don’t – you can’t really arrange the child care until you have the. Job it’s a little bit of this chicken and egg. And so, you know, the interview is really – it’s untenable in a way.

But then you just miss out on all – on plenty of people who are – maybe haven’t taken care of children or, for them, up until this point, the equation worked out such that it was more-cost effective for them to stay home with their children than to have the job. And so, yeah, it just seems like you’re leaving people on the sidelines, and that’s certainly an expensive one relatively.

MARTIN: But I guess the $64,000 question is – you sent this very sort of comprehensive kind of idea here, you sent it to HR, you sent it to the CEO – did you get a response?

TCHEYAN: I did. I heard back from the head of YouTube HR who clearly read it and was really thoughtful in their response and said that, you know, this – supporting YouTube’s parents – because that was my subject line – is a priority, it’s a total priority and that, you know, there are some really good ideas in there, and I’d like to talk further. So that was the response that I got.

MARTIN: OK. It sounds like yay. I mean, that was – what is that? I don’t even know what to say to that. What does that even mean?

TCHEYAN: I think I had an assumption that really large companies like mine would have the easiest time implementing these things because they had the resources, and they had these huge piles of money to throw at this stuff. But what I’ve heard really is much smaller companies are more nimble and can more quickly make policy change.

And so I’ve heard from startup founders who have reached out who want to have, you know, a diverse team from the start, a company culture that supports everyone from the get-go as they grow. And they’ve made changes readily like adding reimbursement for interviewees’ child care. So I think maybe – I don’t know if I underestimated how hard it would be to institutionalize something like this at a big global company, but yeah, it would have been great to hear – and tomorrow, onsite child care for everyone, you know (laughter).

MARTIN: Well, what do you think? Now that you’ve put it out there, what do you think? Do you feel hopeful? Do you feel pessimistic?

TCHEYAN: No. I think – I do feel quite hopeful. I heard back directly from companies that decided to make policy changes as a result of the research. So my sort of experiment there, you know, if you have the information then you might do something with it, so far, is proving positive.

MARTIN: That’s Cristina Tcheyan. She’s a former employee at Google. We’re talking about her piece in Working Mother magazine describing a letter of advice she wrote to her former employers about why they should institute better and more supportive family policies. Cristina Tcheyan, thanks so much for talking to us.

TCHEYAN: Thank you, Michel.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Sports August 10, 2019

Former NFL Player Chris Borland Asks Catholic Church To Take Stand On Gun Control

Former NFL player Chris Borland grew up Catholic in Dayton. He talks with host Sacha Pfeiffer about his call for the church to take a stronger stand for gun control and against white supremacy.



SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Chris Borland is another athlete who’s taking a stand, and he’s asking other athletes to join him. He’s a former NFL player who grew up in Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. After the mass shootings there and in El Paso and in Gilroy, Calif., he wrote an open letter to the archbishop of Cincinnati urging the Catholic Church to, quote, “lead as Christ would.” I asked Borland why he wanted to single out the Catholic Church…

CHRIS BORLAND: It’s what I know, and I grew up within the church. And I see a concerning lack of assertiveness in addressing what’s going on in our country. And to have, you know, what happened in Dayton be met with what I’d consider just the minimal reaction thoughts and prayers to me isn’t enough.

PFEIFFER: What exactly do you want the church to do?

BORLAND: To firstly name and condemn white supremacy – two of the three terrorist attacks were carried out in the name of white supremacy. Secondly, to frame gun control for what it is, a pro-life stance. And thirdly, to hold accountable politicians who are parishioners who use the lord’s name and talk about God in Christ to get elected and then don’t act once in office and embody those values.

PFEIFFER: Last week, the archbishop of San Antonio, Texas, on Twitter was critical of President Trump. He said to him, stop your hatred. And he got heavily criticized for that – the archbishop did – kind of had to backtrack a little. If the archbishop and a part of the country that’s been right at the center of both the crisis on the border and now this attack can’t come out strongly and explicitly call out people that he thinks are promoting racism and violence, do you think it’s realistic to expect other Catholic leaders to do the same?

BORLAND: I don’t know that it’s realistic. This may be entirely naive. I’ve emailed and called and left messages to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, you know, a half dozen or more over the past few days, and have gotten minimal response. So we do have a lot of power in the voice and the numbers of athletes that have competed in the greater Catholic League and we’re going to start there. Maybe it falls on deaf ears, but I think it’s better than doing nothing.

PFEIFFER: You mentioned that you’re trying to build a coalition in a sense of other athletes with prominent public platforms to speak out and join you. Have you been able to get other professional athletes to join you in calling out the Catholic Church?

BORLAND: It’s starting. We’ve had a few, you know, retweet and like the tweets that I put out a couple days ago. You know, there’s a handful of text conversations between men and women that have played at a high-level and email chains. And we’re figuring out the best way to do that. But the sad nature of gun violence in America and of hatred is that if you wait very long, there’s likely be another atrocity. So although it’s imperfect right now, we want to act and figure this out as we go. But, you know, when it happens in your backyard, you have to do something.

PFEIFFER: That’s Chris Borland, a former NFL linebacker who grew up in Dayton. We reached out to the Cincinnati Archdiocese for comment on Borland’s letter, and we were told that the archbishop has read it but hasn’t yet sent Borland a formal response.

Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Health August 10, 2019

At ‘High Five’ Camp, Struggling With A Disability Is The Point

At Nashville’s “High Five” camp, 12-year-old Priceless Garinger (center), whose right side has been weakened by cerebral palsy, wears a full-length, bright pink cast on her left arm — though that arm’s strong and healthy. By using her weaker right arm and hand to decorate a cape, she hopes to gain a stronger grip and fine motor control.

Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio


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Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio

There’s a summer camp for kids with disabilities in Nashville that does things a little differently. Instead of accommodating the campers’ physical challenges, therapists make life a bit tougher, in hopes of ultimately strengthening the kids’ ability to navigate the world.

Priceless Garinger’s left arm is wrapped from shoulder to fingertips in a neon pink cast on the day I visit. The left is actually the 12-year-old’s strong hand. It’s her other arm and hand that’s been the problem since she was born with cerebral palsy. She can move her right arm but has difficulty grasping anything.

“Right there, where you bend your arm, it itches right there,” she says, using a plastic spoon to scratch her elbow, which is out of reach.

This day camp is organized by Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. Some campers, like Priceless, have cerebral palsy; others have had a brain tumor removed, or had a stroke. All of them have a weak side of the body they rarely use. At High Five Constraint Camp the children are forced to try to strengthen that weak side.

“Yeah, there it is,” Priceless says as she bumps bare arms with a fellow camper — an improvised fist bump.

This kind of rehab is known as constraint-induced movement therapy. Similar camps are run by children’s hospitals all around the U.S. during the summer, based on research by Edward Taub at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He hypothesized years ago that the affected limbs suffer from “learned nonuse.”

Priceless takes her turn on the indoor obstacle course at the hospital’s pediatric rehab facility, located at a Vanderbilt satellite campus on Nashville’s outskirts. She rides a modified zipline, wrapping her long legs around the swinging seat — swooping along and then dropping into a pit of overstuffed pillows.

The occupational therapists prompt her to climb out. They cheer her on but don’t immediately help. The struggle is the point.

Priceless finds her way out, and next plops down on a scooter. She grunts as she tries to propel herself with a hand that she can barely control.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says.

Her therapist gives her a little boost toward the finish line, where Priceless hits a buzzer that sounds an alarm and draws cheers from the other campers.

Constraint-induced therapy

The restrictive rehab techniques are increasingly used with kids who have cerebral palsy, though there hasn’t been much research showing the approach is all that much better than traditional physical therapy. And some kids become overly frustrated or even refuse to cooperate.

To outsiders, the strategy can seem mean.

“If the families have never heard of it before, it’s kind of like, ‘What? You’re going to cast their good arm and take away their really functional hand?’ ” says occupational therapist Stephanie Frazer.

This particular day camp started a decade ago as part of a research project at Vanderbilt University. When the study concluded, the camp shut down. But Frazer revived it in recent years because she believes the approach, and the setting, are effective.

“Whenever we’re casting that good arm, the brain is like, ‘I have this other arm here.’ And they start using it more and it starts creating pathways,” she says. “They actually make a lot of progress in a short amount of time.”

The kids’ temporary casts end in a mitten shape to minimize any wiggle room and attempts to rely on that stronger hand while at camp.

Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio


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Blake Farmer/Nashville Public Radio

Even snacktime can be turned into a therapeutic experience. Playing with food is required at this camp. The kids take pretzels and stab them into blocks of cheese.

Some blow bubbles in their juice, partly out of frustration. Some resort to using the arm that’s in a cast to feed themselves.

Seeking independence

This is the third summer of camp for Priceless, who wasn’t exactly enthusiastic when she started. But she’s beginning to see how helpful it would be to be able to rely on both hands to do things like manipulate a remote control.

“I want to play with my iPad and watch TV,” she says.

The parents of the campers are even more motivated, because they understand how the use of two hands could make independence in adulthood much more feasible for their children.

“She talks about wanting to drive,” says Laura Garinger, Priceless’ mom.

From past experience, Garinger says she suspects that for the first few months after this camp session, Priceless will use her weak hand more often. But in past summers she has eventually reverted to relying on her strong side.

Still, Garinger says, she has witnessed lots of other, permanent successes.

Garinger, who is a special education teacher, met Priceless when the little girl was 3 years old; she adopted Priceless two years later. The preschooler needed to use a walker at the time. Now she walks on her own.

Being able to rely on both hands would go a long way toward helping Priceless achieve her dreams, her mom says.

“She hopes to be a police officer, so the sky’s the limit. We’ll see,” Garinger says, pausing as her voice shakes with emotion. “I mean, it’s probably not realistic, but I always tell her she can do what she wants when she grows up.”

Garinger says the first step for Priceless is strengthening her arm enough to give a high-five — and a two-arm hug.

This story is part of NPR’s reporting partnership with Nashville Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.

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