How did you employers handle time off before you were placed with a child?

[AmyJo63]

Hi, we are at the very start of the adoption process. The law is that our employers have to give us paid time off for up to 5 appointments once we have been matched with a child. However, there do not appear to be rules regarding before you are placed.

We have been told we will need to attend multiple appointments and training sessions before we are placed. Can I ask how your employers dealt with this? For example, did you take holiday days or unpaid time? Did anyone's employers refuse to let them take the time off? I have consulted both of our employee handbooks and there is no mention of before being placed. Speaking to our managers and HR teams it seems like this is not a subject they have had to deal with before.

Thank you

[AdventureBegins]

I used a mixture of holidays and flex time plus some of the training days were at a weekend and my social worker would do some of the sessions in the evening.

My social worker also let me do 2 lots of visits in a day (with a break in the middle) to reduce numbers of days off. Was hard going!

[donquixotedelamancha]

Mine were all paid. I think if they pay staff during maternity appointments then they would be hard pressed to discriminate for your appointments.

[howmanyusernames]

The 5 days after being matched are a legal thing, any time off before that is up to your employer unfortunately, and they don't have to give you the time off.
I'm self-employed so it didn't matter for me, but my OH had to have time off to attend SW meetings and training. We were lucky in that our SW meetings were arranged for my OH's day off, and the training was on a weekend. Otherwise you'd have to take unpaid leave, if you employer lets you, or have it as holiday.
Unfortunately they don't have to give you time off like they would for maternity appointments, which is another issue alongside not getting statutory adoption leave if you're self-employed!

[topcat2014]

TBH, so far I have been using holiday.

When we get to matching etc, I think I will be able to have the five 6.5hour paid times.

Weird number of hours though, given that we work a 7.5 hr day.

[DashOfMagic]

@Topcat I thought that was an odd amount of hours as well

I also am a bit baffled by the idea of having 5 x 6.5hr appointments after being matched. Matching panel is the last appointment. What are these other mystery appointments?? I spoke to my employer about this and they agreed when the time comes they'll just add an extra paid week to my adoption leave instead.

[DashOfMagic]

Oh sorry OP didn’t answer the question!

I took 4 days off annual leave for training and a day off for approval panel. All other appointments havent been full days but around 3-4 hrs long so I have worked overtime or worked from home to make up the hours. There were about 8 of those appointments with our social worker.

[clairedelalune]

I was very lucky as my employers treated it like maternity appointments (it helped that i was going through it at same time as a pregnant lady who was off lots more than me). I would ask why you were being treated any differently.

[topcat2014]

@clairedelune - (channelling Penny Mordaunt), I couldn't ask for parity with anyone pregnant as "I appear to have been issued with the wrong kit".

Nice idea though :)

[Ted27]

there are potentially lots of meetings after panel. In the afternoon after panel I went to my son's school and was given information that I couldn't have before.
I had two meetings about intros, I met birth dad. There was a huge meeting with all the SWs, where you went through all the paperwork, checked you were happy with the intro plan, went through the financials, signed things like the parental responsibilty forms , plan for school. If you have a school age child you probably need to visit the new school. I probably spent a day on the phone sorting school stuff out.
We managed to arrange several meetings on the same day. But I decided to take a week's annual leave before intro day to cover it all. I also ended up on a two day training course specific to my son's needs.

[hidinginthenightgarden]

Both DH and I had to use annual leave.

[AmyJo63]

Thank you for your feedback. My manager has suggested that for the appointments I work from home and for the training days, I make back the time. I feel that is a fair solution

[UnderTheNameOfSanders]

We used flexi time and annual leave. Company very flexible for DH during our 4 week long intros too.

Someone else had recently gone through adoption so various precedents had been set. The fact that DH was the manager of the other adopter is of course purely co-incidental.

[Wafflesandblueberries]

I used annual leave and then the 5 days for the first week of introductions

[IAmMumWho]

My employers were amazing. We had every single appointment paid for. Think of it being a scan appointment or antinatle one. Didn't have to use any leave.

[Kirstyr1]

I had holiday and flexi time where I worked back the appointments. Our process has been going on 2 years so you can understand it’s not the same as antenatal... I think so many hours should be allowed as per antenatal... but it’s not the case yet. Going to panel for approval in August so hopefully getting closer to family finding!!

[Italiangreyhound]

I took time off as annual leave. I only work part-time so it worked fine. My dh works full time and he asked for his appointments to be after work hours when possible.

We did not have any problems. I can't remember when I told work but probably not right at the start of the process.