On 5 April 2015 a new policy will give eligible parents, partners and adopters the flexibility to decide who will care for their child in the first year of its life. This new policy will be called Shared Parental Leave also known as SPL.
The changes mean that maternity cover can be split between a mother and her partner or the father, giving them the chance to either take time off together to care for their child (beyond the current two weeks paternity leave that is currently available to fathers), or split the leave so that the mother can return to work, allowing the father or partner to spend additional quality time bonding and caring for their child.
Personally I think that quite honestly this is brilliant and four out of five expectant parents are apparently also in agreement of it. I think it's so important that children and fathers are offered that chance to bond to be able to bond together. Even if parents don't choose to split the maternity leave between both parents, it's still nice to know that the option will be there.
To save you hunting around the web looking through numerous sites to find more information and/or answers to questions you may have about SPL, here is an infographic put together by the people at Citrix GoToMeeting that gives you all the information you need on the new policy.
This is such a great change that is a long time coming. I now just hope that parents make the most of it x
ReplyDelete