Adopting and work

[MissGarfield]

Hi everyone.
I'm a newbie here so please bear with me.

I am seeking advice. I would like to adopt in the near future as a single parent and I've discussed it with my boss. She's been very supportive even to the point of asking what do I want in my contract to make life easier such as working from home location.

What other work tips do you have to share that I can reasonably ask her to put into my contract to make life easier.

Congratulations on the new job, and how fantastic to have such a supportive manager. The trouble at this stage is that for any new parent, and perhaps particularly an adoptive parent, its hard to know how things will change once DC is here, I guess it's quite likely you might want to work flexibly/part-time but you won't know when/how exactly so it will be hard to ask for a firm contractual commitment at this point - I expect they won't want to say you can work whatever hours you want however you want to work them starting from whenever you want, which would be ideal . But I guess it would be useful to understand now how the flexible working process works and whether they are generally supportive of requests for part-time working, job sharing, flexi-time etc (sounds like they are which is good news!).

If the company offers enhanced adoption leave and pay (over and above statutory) it would be good to know and have that confirmed in your contract now. Also whether you can apply for a further period of unpaid parental leave and/or an unpaid career break/sabbatical and what the implications of that for returning to your job, having to repay adoption pay etc are. I know sometimes adoptive children are not ready to go straight into childcare after the year's adoption leave is up, so it would be useful to know if you have the option to extend your leave if that is the case. Again this may not be able to be put into your contract as career breaks are not normally a contractual right but no harm in asking...

Have you popped over to the adoption board on here to ask if the adoptive parents on there have any advice, they probably know better than me?