Day 7 - Kinship carers need paid leave.

Kinship carers are being forced out of work by a system that doesn’t value their love. When family members and friends step up to raise children when their parents can’t look after them, they have very little support – especially from their employers.

8 in 10 kinship carers across England and Wales are forced to leave their jobs or reduce their hours due to lack of support. Nearly 7 in 10 say their employer doesn’t offer support for kinship carers. This isn’t good enough.

The first-ever national Kinship Care Strategy is due to be published in one week. This gives us a short but vital window of opportunity to influence what is included.

Will you use our easy tool to send a quick email to the Minister responsible for employment rights at the Department for Business and Trade today and ask that they introduce paid leave for kinship carers, equal to what is currently available for parents who adopt?

No one would argue that parents who adopt shouldn’t have paid time off work to care for and bond with the new child in their home – but most kinship carers don’t have that option. Instead, at the very moment they need the most support, their incomes are slashed, or they are forced to leave work completely.

Many new kinship carers are plunged into poverty right when they should receive extra support to care for a new child. This must stop. The new Kinship Care Strategy must include provisions for paid leave from work for new kinship carers.

The Government must alleviate some of the extreme financial hardships facing kinship carers and help to keep children within their loving families and out of the care system.

Every voice counts. We need to make this call for change impossible to ignore. Please, take 1 minute today and send this important email.

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