Children and Families Act: Parental support

What is happening?

The act includes a range of measures designed to help new parents - including adopters - better balance their work and home life. In particular, these include:

Who does it affect?

The act's provisions in this area aim to create a culture change in the way parents balance the responsibilities of parenthood and work.

A number of the measures are aimed at getting fathers more involved in antenatal care and the first few months of their child's life, and later on when fitting work commitments around the confines of the school day or nursery care.

Jenny Willott, employment relations minister, says: "Current workplace arrangements have not kept up with the times. The act will bring the way new parents balance their working and home lives into the 21st century.

"By enabling any employee to request to work flexibly, we want to remove any cultural assumption that flexible working is only for women, or just for parents and carers. We want these reforms to bring about a culture change in Britain's workplaces, allowing everyone to better balance work with their personal life in the way that works for them."

There is little in the act that should change the way social workers support adopters and prospective adopters. But extension of adoption leave and pay to the level that other new parents receive should give added assurance and stability in the crucial first months of a child's placement.

Implications for practice

A recent report by education foundation The Sutton Trust highlighted the benefits of extending maternity leave from 18 weeks to a full year, with nine months paid, for cementing child-parent bonds - with average leave taken by new mothers rising to 39 weeks.

The trust's Baby Bonds report also suggests a rise in breast-feeding rates could be attributed to longer maternity leave.

"Given all we know about the factors that threaten good early parenting and secure attachment, it is clear that a broad range of policies for families with young children could help prevent insecure attachment. Such policies are a 'win-win' - they are likely to benefit children and families' health and broader wellbeing, and help to improve early parenting and attachment," the report adds.

One of the report authors, Sophie Moullin, a social policy expert at Princeton University in the US, explains that allowing couples to share parenting leave, or for fathers to take on the bulk of it in the first year, could add to these benefits.

"Babies will securely attach to whoever provides them with consistent, warm, responsive care. That could be the father or an adoptive parent.

"It is being attached to one parent that really matters for children. So, for example, if mum is depressed or really struggling, having an involved, caring dad will become even more important.

"Allowing fathers to spend more time with their babies could reduce the pressures on both parents, and so help provide the conditions for secure attachment. And some research links attachment to dads specifically to boys' behaviour as teenagers."

The need to forge strong bonds with children is even more pronounced for parents who are adopting.

Srabani Sen, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, says the improvements to adoption support are therefore "a very positive development".

She adds: "When you adopt a child, it's a very different experience: you need time to bring the child into the family. Many of these children will have had difficult experiences in earlier life.

"Adopting a child is a huge decision and an intense process; it is crucial to provide these prospective parents with as much time as possible to make these critical decisions."

Unresolved issues

The Baby Bonds study found that even a short period of paternity leave is associated with greater paternal involvement with the baby. But a separate study by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) has revealed that a quarter of new fathers took no paternity leave at all, while fewer than one in 10 took more than their two weeks statutory leave.

The ILM blamed "ingrained" attitudes among employers and concerns among new fathers that they could not afford to take leave. Overcoming this employment culture will be a major stumbling block to the reforms having their desired impact.

Chris Cuthbert, NSPCC lead for babies, says: "If we want fathers to play an increasing role in childcare and supporting new mums, we have to meet them halfway and give decent paternity leave.

"This isn't just about legal entitlements, it's also about an attitude in the workplace that recognises that childcare and work-life balance are not just issues for mothers."

Barbara McIntosh, head of children and young people's programmes at the Mental Health Foundation, agrees the culture of the workplace is crucial. "If you're disadvantaged career-wise for taking time off, then people won't take time off."

Under the act, the self-employed do not get the same level of support, an issue Adoption UK has raised with government departments. Its chief executive Hugh Thornbery says: "Self-employed adopters still pay taxes and national insurance, but they are not going to get the same benefits."

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