Ascension shares its leave templates to encourage other faith-based organizations in expanding leave for maternity, paternity, miscarriage, and more.

In March, Ascension internally announced fully paid leave for maternity, paternity, miscarriage, personal illness, and family caregiving. Now, Ascension is making these policies externally available as reference templates for use by other faith-based organizations. 

“A lot of work went into the creation of these policies,” shares Ascension’s president and CEO Jonathan Strate. “Our teams worked hard and had the policies reviewed thoroughly for legal compliance, as well as submitting them for an ethics review by Catholic moral theologians. We hope that other faith-based organizations can benefit from these templates as they develop their own leave policies.” 

**Ascension’s leave-policy templates can be found here**

A Great Place to Work® … Especially for Working Parents

With 70% of its employees being working parents and the majority of employees being of childbearing age (51%), supporting team members in their family commitments is a top priority for success at Ascension.

“As a husband and father of six, I know firsthand the importance of balancing the dual calls to family life and professional life,” continues Strate. “One of my top priorities is that our employees would be able to care for their families in times of need, and especially at the joyful addition of a new child.”

Cassie Schmidt, senior manager of the People and Culture team at Ascension, comments that there are a variety of ways, both formal and informal, that Ascension supports working parents. “First, our all-remote work structure makes it easier for our employees to balance their commitments to their families with their workloads. Additionally, many of our teams encourage employees to flex their hours, which allows parents to be available at the times of the day which are the most important to their family life. Babies are welcome—and honestly celebrated!—on intra-Ascension Zoom calls, and employees are welcome to bring infants with them when it’s time to travel to our Pennsylvania offices for in-person meetings.”

Support for working parents was an important element of the recent redesign of the Ascension offices in Fall 2022. As the company downsized from its previously fully in-person location to a smaller office footprint, it added a dedicated Mother’s Room and a dedicated Children’s Room to the floor plan, with curated features like dimmed lighting, a diaper changing area, a padded recliner for nursing mothers, Milkstork support services for nursing mothers, and toys for small children.

Ascension has been certified as a Great Place to Work for two years in a row, a rare achievement for a faith-based company.

About Ascension
Ascension is a multimedia network and the leader in Catholic faith formation and digital content. Over the past 25 years, Ascension has helped nurture the faith of more than 10 million Catholics through award-winning books, the chart-topping Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year podcasts, more than 50 unique faith formation programs, and Ascension Presents, which hosts the largest Catholic YouTube channel in English.

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Contact:
Lauren Joyce
Ascension
800-376-0520
[email protected]

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Religion News Service or Religion News Foundation.