How working parents cope when a child falls ill   By JOAN BENSON-CACCHIONE joan.cacchione@timesnews.com You knew. Long before your head hit the pillow — when you saw the picked-at dinner, the glazed look at bedtime — you knew the night would end like this: with a little voice next to your bed, saying, "I don't feel good." What working parent hasn't faced it? "The kid is sick, and you might not have child-care plans for that, and it's 'I have to work!'" says Lisa Quinn, a nursing professor at Gannon University's Villa Maria School of Nursing and the mother of two children, ages 7 and 10. "Or what happens when the child is in school and gets sick and you get that call, 'Come pick up your child'?" Quinn says. "Then what do you do? If I'm in clinical at the hospital with students, I can't leave. On those days my husband will go. "Your child is your priority, so we work it back and forth. "Also, since the kids were babies, we've had people in mind to go to as backup" for sick days, Quinn says. "But some parents aren't sure what to do." Coping with a child's illness is tough enough. Add in job schedules and deadlines, and the anxiety spikes as fast as a fever. "It's a big stress for families," says Karen Ericson, manager of the Child Care Center at Saint Vincent Health Center. Ericson's staff cares for about 110 children, ages 6 weeks to 5 years old. Many of the children there are the offspring of the Center's employees, but as space allows, the staff takes outside applications. For the single parents among them, the sick-child scenario is especially challenging. "You don't even have a spouse to switch off with" in taking time off from work, says Ericson. "I've had a dad say to me, 'I've used up all of my vacation time.' Supervisors are not always understanding. It's difficult." Tougher yet for families new to town. "You have families in the area where they grew up, and you have families who have relocated. Those families don't have the natural built-in supports" — grandparents, aunts, cousins — to turn to when their kids get sick, says Jeff Natalie, a licensed social worker and family therapist. "The complaints I hear are, 'I don't have anyone to rely on. We're from New York or Florida.' The parents who do have connections, who have some recourse in this situation, have a greater sense of confidence if their child gets sick and they're in a bind." Still, grandmothers have doctor's appointments, and cousins have part-time jobs. "I come from a big Sicilian family, where there's help to be had," says Natalie. "But you can't always rely on that," he adds, on a day when he had to put off filming a video when his own child-care plans fell through. And you can't send sick children to school or day care. That endangers their health, and the health of others. "Day care is not an option for a sick child," Natalie says. Schools and child-care facilities have strict rules as to when a child may and may not attend. Written guidelines are given to every parent upon enrollment at Saint Vincent's Child Care Center. Same thing at the Penn State Behrend Child Care Center. "We have specific guidelines. Parents must follow the health policy," says Eunice Moore, the center's director. "Bringing in a sick child brings the danger of passing the illness to other children. Then the staff gets sick, and we have staffing issues." This time of year is tough, Ericson adds, what with the bronchial illnesses and other ailments that make the rounds in winter. "We get the illnesses that go around the classroom. ... I didn't have enough help today," for instance, she says. But desperate parents who feel they can't miss work and lack a good plan for sick-kid care will sometimes show up at her door, hoping for the best. "I think very often parents will give their children Motrin or Tylenol if they seem cranky at home or feel a little warm, to tide them over till lunchtime," Ericson says. Sometimes they bounce back. Other times it's clear, when the medicine wears off, that something's not right. "By lunchtime, we'll notice that the child is out of sorts," says Ericson, "or is starting to show signs of not feeling well." By then it's too late. Others have been exposed. And the parent must still leave work — or make arrangements — to pick up the child who's developed a fever, sore throat or other ailment. While the Child Care Center isn't set up to care for sick kids, Saint Vincent Health Center does offer its employees sick-child care through the hospital, an option most employers would be ill-equipped to do. "If you work at the hospital and have your child at our child-care center, and if there's an opening in the pediatric unit, you may take your child there" for a small hourly fee, says Ericson. "That's really helped a lot of families." A similar program has been in place for years at Hamot Medical Center, says Don Inderlied, senior vice president for corporate services. "That's been a well-received benefit. It came about from our discussions with employees about their concerns. We don't have an on-campus child-care facility, but this is one of the ways that can help when employees' children get ill — too sick to go to school, but not sick enough to be hospitalized." Hamot employees also can donate vacation time or sick days to a fellow employee whose child's illness requires them to take a lot of time off. Of all of the issues that crop up between employer and employee, Inderlied says the sick-child situation is "one of the more challenging to employees, certainly, depending on what their child-care needs and arrangements are. And," he adds, "anything that creates stress for our employees affects us." Finding ways to respond to that stress is just one example of the "work-life balance that has become a critical issue in organizations today, not just at Hamot," says Inderlied. The work force at Hamot is about 81 percent female, a substantial number of whom are parents. Employers' responses to sick-child issues, though, vary widely. So parents need to be ready with a plan — and a backup — in case fever comes creeping in the night. "I'm a working parent myself," says Moore at Penn State Behrend. "I don't have family in the area, and my husband and I both work. But this (coping with the illness issue) is something we committed to when we had a child," a son, who's now in first grade. She and her husband alternate taking vacation days when their son needs to stay home. "It's something we agreed to do. It's our responsibility as parents." JOAN BENSON-CACCHIONE can be reached at 870-1737 or by e-mail.