Foster Carer’s Leave
BEBCMAT is supportive of its employees becoming Foster Carers, Friends and Family Carers, Staying Put Carers, Supported Lodging Providers and Special Guardians and to support those already providing these types of care by providing time off work where necessary.
Qualifying Conditions for Leave
Every employee who is a prospective or approved Foster Carer, Friends and Family Carer, Staying Put Carer, Supported Lodging Provider or Special Guardian is entitled to make a request for time off under this policy, regardless of hours worked. Employees are entitled to this right from their first day of work.
Circumstances for Support Leave
Support Leave can be granted for a variety of reasons, to enable employees to become carers or to continue to provide care where a child is in placement, or a young person is in a staying put arrangement.
Employees who foster or who are considering becoming a foster carer will be entitled to:
- Up to 5 days’ leave during their assessment for approval in becoming a foster carer;
- An additional 5 days’ leave during the approval process or when they are caring for a foster child, e.g. for meetings, training or unforeseen emergencies relating to their fostering role, i.e. to accommodate an emergency placement;
- Up to 10 days’ leave at the start of a planned permanent placement.
Our policy offers employees up to a maximum of 20 days special leave in a 12-month period. The first 10 days will be paid leave. The maximum entitlement will be granted only in exceptional circumstances, where an employee has, applied to be a foster carer, received training and had a child permanently placed with them, all within 12 months. Typically, it is expected that employees could apply for up to 10 days in a leave year when being placed with a child.
This leave entitlement also applies for kinship and family and friends carers. Family and friends carers are those who care for the child of a relative or friend where the parent isn’t able to provide day-to-day care, e.g. where the child lives with the carer rather than their parent.