When Katie’s baby niece was about to be placed in care, she and her partner stepped in to become her kinship carers (family and friends who are raising their relative’s children). What followed was a crash course in parenting, financial and emotional stress, and a fight for kinship carers’ rights for paid leave.
My partner Mark and I were saving to buy our first home and hoping to start a family of our own soon when everything changed overnight.
In April 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, I got a call from social services to say my baby niece would be placed in care unless we could take her in. We didn’t hesitate.
I was fostered from an early age and adopted at six years old, and I was determined my niece wouldn’t have to go through the same experience. So, without much warning, *Tilly came to live with us. Our lives were turned completely upside down.
We had no time to prepare. It was a crash course in parenting. Thankfully, Mark was furloughed and I was working from home during lockdown, so juggling childcare just about worked. But when offices reopened, and Mark had to return to a physical workplace, reality hit hard.
We suddenly needed to find an extra £700 a month for her nursery fees, when all I wanted to do was stay at home with her like any new parent.
Leaving her every morning was hard, especially knowing that kinship children like Tilly have already experienced loss and trauma and what they need most is love, stability, and time to settle.
Unlike all other working parents including adoptive parents, kinship carers like us, the relatives and close friends who step up to raise 141,000 children across England and Wales when their parents can’t, have no legal right to paid leave from work.
We lived in our overdrafts, used credit cards for food shops, and lay awake at night worrying about how we’d make it work.
I work in HR, and thankfully, my employer at the time gave me some discretionary time off and a lot of flexibility and understanding. It’s something I’ll always be grateful for. But not everyone is as fortunate as me. That’s why I campaigned for my workplace to introduce a paid leave policy for kinship carers, so others wouldn’t have to face the same impossible choice between their income and the wellbeing of a vulnerable child.
Even so, statutory paid leave from work would have made all the difference. It would have given us the breathing space to help Tilly settle and build lasting bonds with us, without the financial pressure, and we could have focused on giving her love, stability, and our time.
I feel passionately that kinship carers should have the same rights as any other working parent. It’s unfair on both kinship carers and their children to expect them to go straight back to work or give up their jobs for stepping up to keep a child - often a baby - out of the care system. It's a huge gap in the law.
That passion led me to join Kinship as their Head of People & Culture. Kinship is a charity that provides support and advice to kinship carers and campaigns for them to be better supported, including with statutory paid leave, through its #ValueOurLove campaign.
Our research shows that nearly half of kinship carers (45%) lose their jobs or careers when they take on a child, and 8 in 10 who stop working never return to employment. We’re losing experienced, skilled people - teachers, nurses, retail workers - due to a failed system.
Instead of supporting families who are keeping children out of the care system, they’re being pushed into financial hardship and often onto benefits. It just isn’t right.
We want the government (who are currently reviewing parental leave and pay) to remove the exclusions kinship carers currently face and deliver a new right to statutory pay and leave which provides kinship families with the support they need and deserve.
This week, Kinship has brought together kinship carers, government officials, employers like John Lewis, and workplace experts to help co-design what a new right to paid leave for kinship carers could look like.
Our Kinship Friendly Employer scheme has already helped big employers introduce paid leave policies for kinship carers. But we believe no one should have to rely on the goodwill of their employer. Statutory paid leave should be a right, not a privilege.
As a family, we’ve come a long way. We are now married and have had a baby boy, and I’ve had the chance to experience maternity leave. It couldn’t have been more different as those early months were full of joy, instead of worry and guilt.
I adore both our children, but it breaks my heart that Tilly’s early months were overshadowed by financial stress and exhaustion. Kinship children and families deserve better.
If you believe kinship carers should have the same right to paid leave as any other parent, please support Kinship’s #ValueOurLove campaign by signing the petition and help us fight for change.
*Katie’s niece’s name has been changed to Tilly to protect her identity