The “Caring for Dependents Travel Award” was established in 2013 for faculty who needed help defraying additional dependent care expenses while traveling to a scientific conference/meeting related to their academic advancement. The $500 award can be used for the following expenses: (1) travel expenses for children/dependent(s), (2) travel expenses for children/dependent(s)’s caregiver during trip, (3) expenses for additional child/dependent care at home during the trip, and/or (4) expenses for child/dependent care at meeting site. The award does not cover conference registration or personal travel expenses for the faculty member.

A call for applications (i.e., description of the conference, how it will advance the applicant’s career, planned use of the awarded money) is issued twice per year to cover dependent care expenses. Eligible faculty must be at the Instructor or Assistant Professor academic rank and the travel must be a professional meeting for the purpose of advancing the faculty member’s career.

A 3-question survey administered through REDCap on the impact of the award was sent to award recipients in 2022 with the option to provide free-text comments on the question “How did the ‘Caring for Dependent(s) Travel Awards’ impact you?” These data are part of a data repository in the CFD approved by our institutional review board.