To publicise parental leave

[Isntshelovely2024]

I have found a lot of parents at my work are unaware of parental leave and how it can be used. The premise is 18 weeks per child under the age of 18 - you can take a maximum of 4 weeks per year per child.
This leave is unpaid and your employer does not have to say yes to the date you choose but must allow you to take it within 6 months.
I think more awareness about this type of leave is needed, it’s vastly under used.

I used it for the first time this year and took a few extra days in the summer holidays when we were struggling to make it stretch. It was a huge help and I plan to take a full week next summer. The way I look at it, I’d happily buy a weeks extra annual leave if my company gave the option, so instead I’ll work out how much pay I’ll lose for a week and put it aside through the rest of the year so we’re covered.

Thing is you don't have the right to take it when you want, the employer can put it off for up to 6 months - so most employers would say (as staffing is often lower in school holidays as all parents want their leave then) you have requested parental leave the first two weeks of August, we can't accomodate that you may take it the first two weeks of October - perfectly within the law but doesn't help you with childcare for the Summer holidays

I'm a lone parent and have used this for years. It wasn't much more expensive than having the stress of sending my children to a holiday club. I even used it in the first week of DS's GCSE's last year.
It doesn't affect holiday entitlement.

I think poster meant the NHS trust her husband works doesn’t offer it paid, not that he can’t get parental leave

how is carers leave a week and unpaid?

But parental leave is unpaid. Not sure what you mean.

@lostmycards another poster said that her NHS husband gets a week of his paid.

You need to read the thread. The poster was responding to a pp that said their employer offered the first week as paid leave, ie above the statutory requirement, which is unpaid.

Hi @lostmycards it appears that some NHS offer paid parental leave. This is what I mean. There was a conversation prior to your posts which you must have missed.

What do you mean by how? Its not carers leave it's parental leave , defined in legislation

I used it once many years ago to have the summer hols before DS started school and now planning to use again next year before DS is 18. You can have weeks separately so feels easier on the finances. Wish I’d used it more to be honest they grown up so quickly need to make most of the time!

no, something different to parental leave, is Carers leave, and that is only a week and is unpaid.
seems unfair

What do you mean about reducing annual leave?
If you have a limit of staff who can be off at any one time in order to cover services. Then it's irrelevant whether they are on annual leave or parental leave. So if you mean more people on parental leave at any point in time would mean fewer people being able to take annual leave - I understand. But you couldn't reduce a staff member's annual leave because they had taken a week's parental leave.

I used it when my DC were in the first few years of primary school when they felt a little bit too young for weeks of holiday clubs. I used to save a bit of my salary over the year so that my unpaid weeks in the summer didn’t feel too brutal. But appreciate not everyone earns enough to do this.

Tapered off as the kids got older and more robust for weeks of clubs.

I evangelise about it now to colleagues and encourage people to take it up - it saved my sanity when trying to juggle small children and school holidays.

Is this the case though? As the purpose of the parental leave is to spend time with the child - and as most children would be in school 1st 2 weeks of October then it wouldn't be eligible. I can see it's an absolute nightmare for employers who already struggle with staff wanting leave at the same time and having to maintain services. I wonder how much could be covered by eg students working over summer holidays if employers planned it a bit?

It used to be only available until the child was 5, then around 2018 ( I think) they increased it to 18 years. I’ve taken 2 weeks this year to help with childcare and hopefully will continue to do the same until my child is 18. I budget for the loss of wages, but then I’m not a big earner so don’t really notice the difference too much.

A question for anyone who might know - is there an entitlement database that employers have to check, to make sure you have enough left from the 18 weeks to take what you have asked for? Just wondering about people who've changed jobs etc.

We don’t allow its use in the school holidays. We have a huge number of parents and there would be no annual leave for some parents/non parents if we did.

we offer other dates but not July/aug/Xmas to allow everyone to have some annual leave.

I used this a few years back when I wasn't able to secure childcare on my own. It's very useful for situations like this or if your child is poorly. But I probably wouldn't use it just because, as you only have a set amount of weeks up until the child is 18. Circumstances can change as I found out in the past, so I keep it on the back burner for emergencies.

@Schoolchoicesucks i think it is right. Which does make the whole thing pointless if you want/ need for childcare( which is what it’s essentially aimed at) .
My last employer wouldn’t give any parental leave in school holidays, so it was only really useful for those that had younger children, even then he made it almost impossible.

I thought they couldn't say no so long as you give 21 days notice.

@WillowTit there is also carers leave. it's 1 week and unpaid. It doesn't matters how many people you look after. Still only one week. but it's completely different from parental leave.

I can’t afford to take it, it’s too much money lost. But I get 8 weeks paid leave plus bank hols and 10 up to days paid “dependents” leave for emergencies. So that’s always been fine so far.

Summer holiday clubs are £200ish a week vs £950 a week pay.

I don't have people with children in my team so it's rather handy as nobody else wants time off in the expensive months.. Also used it when DC was for a month in hospital (outside school hols).

I am also an NHS worker & it’s well used in my dept! I have only had 5 days as my kids were older when I started working here & at that time it was up to age 14. Many of my colleagues use it to cover school holidays etc. A colleague was advised by management to use some at the end of her mat leave as she has 4 children & was struggling to get child care in place for the youngest.