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Shared parental leave

Oreo28 May 20, 2020 09:11

Hi,

Me and my girlfriend began the adoption process in January and I’m still trying to wrap my head around shared parental leave.

Both mine and my girlfriend’s work offer shared leave, so that’s a good start.

She’ll take adoption leave as her job offers a much better pay rate for 18wks, so I’ll take paternity.

We both plan to take at least 6months off together (She is a teacher so depending on when children are placed, we could have her school holidays factored in).

My question is, after my paternity leave ends, do I need to wait until her 18wks of adoption leave ends before I can technically begin the shared leave? Then I guess I must fill the gap with annual leave and starving myself by spending nothing?

Or can I begin sharing leave as soon as paternity is up?

My job are unsure and their policy is basic so they asked me to research it and get advice. I’ve tried asking our SW over the last 2months but she wasn’t helpful and is now off, so we should be getting a new SW soon.

Ive done plenty of reading on the policies and government guidance which I mostly understand, I guess it’s just a case of how to translate what that says into practice?

Edited 17/02/2021
Beth & Cal May 20, 2020 13:22

Hi we're using shared parental leave when our LO's are placed and this is our understanding of it.

Adoption leave is 52 weeks, of this 50 weeks can be shared.

Paternity leave is 2 weeks.

My husband is taking the main adoption leave as his job offers a much better package than mine. For me to commence shared leave my husband has to end his adoption leave and also goes onto shared parental leave (which drops the package offered to the statutory so I'd check that with your employers).

Because of this we are having to split it so he has the first 6 months (I will have 2 weeks paternity and school holidays) before we swap and he goes back to work and I use the remaining 20 something weeks. It's also worth noting that if you are both off for a week at the same time that counts as 2 weeks leave, so being off together may make you unable to have a whole year (if that makes sense).

Hope this helps a bit, I've spent hours pouring over the policies for both of our employers and the gov website to try and get to this point!

Edited 17/02/2021
Oreo28 May 20, 2020 19:33

Hi Beth and Cal,

that’s really helpful thanks. Just to hear it from an actual person. Now I get that shared leave will only start once my girlfriends adoption leave ends, got it.

thats what I guessed and how I worked out our finances for the finance form.

it makes sense how you’ve explained it. Both being off at the same time, it’s a week each you use so uses up 2!

The hours pouring over policies sounds too familiar. My manager has asked me to help re-write them. I’m working on convincing them to improve on from the governments basic allowance ?

Edited 17/02/2021

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