To be annoyed that my employer won’t let me go part time?

Wouldn’t you be entitled to some kind of maternity leave type equivalent given the age of the 4th foster child?

It sounds a highly stressful situation and, to be quite honest, I am somewhat surprised that social services would place 4 children of such young ages with a single working carer. What do they expect you to do? How do they expect you to support these children / house them and manage the stress alone? Is it the right choice to take on a six month old when your entire career is potentially on the line in order to facilitate it?

Only if you're sitting doing nothing 3/5th of the time!

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Seriously? How have you not noticed that you're quoting yourself here?

So you can fulfil you entire role - the work you do now - in 2 days? How?

Are any of the children disabled?

Are you adopting or could you adopt them and take adoption leave?

Can you get foster payments at all from the council?

Could you take parental leave, at least in the short term? You can take I think 4 weeks per child per year and if the child is disabled you can take it in chunks of individual days. So if you went down to 3 days a week using parental leave that would cover almost a year (4 kids x 2O days each = 80 days or 2 days a week for 40 weeks ).

Obviously your employer still needs to agree it but they can't refuse it entirely, they can only delay it.

Any flexible working request must not be to the detriment of the business so you can understand them being concerned about such a big jump from 5 days to 2 days. 3 days may be more workable
for them.

Will the foster care money not replace your wages? I thought people were paid for foster care?

You're going to need the full time job back at some point as the fostering may be temporary. Hire a nanny or au pair part time to do school runs etc. Without a partner you will need someone else to support. There's an organisation that employs older women to care for kids after school etc. unless you're ready to move on accept it.

They are a business and whatever you say about you being able to do your job in two days, that actually won’t work for them as a HOD they need you in five days

why don’t you see if they would reduce your hours each day so do perhaps 2/3rds of your current daily hours and see if that works? Then maybe ask to reduce to 5x half day

the other alternative is to go ahead and find another role that does 2 days, good luck on that

Not that it fully resolves your issue with needing to reduce hours, but have you been given a fostering allowance as Social Services have removed the children. If not do push for one, it may mean a financial assessment, but you should absolutely not be pushed into poverty for this, and also check you are getting what you are entitled to on turn2us or entitledto. If the children have been left needing more support than their peers and for longer than a 6 month period and it will continue you can claim DLA, even without a diagnosis of anything.

I hope you are allowed to reduce your hours as that is a lot to deal with. You are amazing!

If you are a foster carer, don't you get a salary from the local council?

They would just make you do full time outputs in 4 days, that’s always be the given at my place!

I think she needs to pitch it as a job share scenario to work 2 days in department head role.

Is this the big scandal I was reading about that if your foster for blood relatives then you don’t actually get paid to be a foster carer like other foster carers? It’s absolutely shocking really, MPs take note!!

Call ACAS and see if there’s any protection as you are kinship.

what’s your sickness pay policy like? You may need to go off with burnout and then they will know what it’s like for you to not be there at all!

Including (presumably, given it’s a Head of Department role I think) managing your team, dealing with any escalations in a timely manner, covering leave and sickness of the team, attending all relevant meetings etc? I’ve never worked anywhere where a Head of Department role could be done in 2 days.

This is one of the big pitfalls I see over and over. From the decision-maker perspective one of the reasons I'm extremely cautious about approving part-time manager roles under me is that I believe that if I approve a role as part-time then I need to ensure that it will be able to be done in those hours without the sort of pressure you're experiencing and without negatively impacting others. I think that part of my duty of care is not setting employees up for "failure" (I'm promise I'm not calling you a failure but it sounds like you're in a no-win situation), and I will actively support time and workload boundaries for the part time or modified schedules I do approve. But I don't just say yes to requests/proposals and hope it works out; I feel like that often tends to be the permissive-parenting approach to these decisions, where they don't want to come across as inflexible or risk a good candidate/employee leaving but then employees are left to struggle with the realities and not enough ongoing support.

OP your employer does not have to agree to you working a 2-day week. It's a big change. If you would consider 3 days then ask them but otherwise you'll have to look for another job.

I’d be looking elsewhere, and honestly I’d go off sick if I needed to. I wouldn’t take that decision lightly but if I was absolutely on the brink of a breakdown or serious burnout and I was required to concentrate on family issues for a temporary period of time; I’d do it.
You could also use any annual leave to work shorter weeks a couple of times a month if they’d allow this.
I would still job hunt because they’ve proved they don’t really care much for your general wellbeing despite you being so excellent at work - probably because you work very hard and are an asset. Best of luck to you, I hope things become easier for you soon. It’s horrible having to burn the candle at both ends in serious situations where there is no let up. Take care Xxx

Are those roles currently available/being advertised or are you expecting them to create a role specifically for you?

if it is the former- can they actually stop you applying? Have they said why they won’t move you to a different role that is available?

if it is the latter, I think it is a bit much to expect a job to be created for you.