Shared parental leave?

[Liv93]

We have recently attended a few information sessions for adoption, and are still deciding who to go with. We have been researching/reading for several years.

However, one of the questions we have. What is the general consensus with shared parental leave by social workers? It better to just have one parent take leave? Aware we would need at least one year off.

My adoption leave is 6 months fully paid, and 50% for the next 3 months. Due to the large difference in incomes, it would work out financially better for my husband to do the 6-12 month stint. I would still be around, as apart from one day a month, I am working from home (if that makes a difference.)

There is always a possibility that you will come across an SW with archaic attitudes but most should be OK,
Financially it works for you and it will be great for both of you have the dedicated time
Good luck

Thank you!

We were told sw would prefer us to have at least a year off. But it depends on the child and age of the child. We have 2 - sibling pair 3 and 6. I go back to work in 2 weeks after 6 months off (I get 6 months full pay) and then my partner is having 2 months off. He was going to have 3 months off but we can't apply for 3 year funding for nursery unless in last 28 days of adoption leave so wouldn't be able to get funding for autumn term unless he went back to work in September.

He is able to go back due to eldest being in school and youngest being in full time nursery so he would have been at home alone twiddling his thumbs.

Our sw weren't bothered about us having more than 8 months off.

Thanks for your reply! That is really helpful.

We are looking at adopting siblings in the 2-7 age bracket. May I ask what resources you found the most useful? As in books etc. Thanks.

The adoption UK webinars have been brilliant. I also follow quite a few adoption people on insta - adoption resources UK, adoption UK, and a few others.

I'm in therapeutic parenting Facebook groups and have most of Sarah naish's books - a-z of therapeutic parenting is amazing!

We’ve split ours 50/50, so we’re both having six months off, well my husband will have seven months due to accrued leave that he’ll use for the transition to nursery. Our SW wasn’t bothered how we decided to share the leave, but we did have to agree to take 12 months, which we would have done anyway.

You may find working from home with a young child very early in placement a bit of a nightmare, especially if you’re the one who did the first six months.

I have my own business and it's only me who works in it, so I couldn't take time off as such, but worked from home for the first 6 months and would take time out to join in with feeding and activities etc.

My husband took 9 months adoption leave as his company had a great package.
After 6 months of our LO being home we had the adoption order through so legally he was ours and after that was our decision on what we did, if you see what I mean, so while they say 12 months your child/children could be yours after 6 months so it's then up to you if you go back to work.
Our LO was only 6 months old though, so with older siblings you may need longer off and the adoption order may take longer if birth parents object etc.