# Has anyone adopted a second time whilst on leave with the first?



## MummyElf (Apr 11, 2013)

Hi Ladies,

The situation is that we are going to matching panel in June and all being well we'll be on our way. There is a sibling on the way for our LO who will be born in the not too distant future. The idea is that the second LO will also be placed with us. Whether this happens when care proceedings conclude or whether concurrency will come in to play, in the circumstances of this particular case, the second LO will almost certainly be placed with us whilst I am still on leave for No.1.

I will be receiving the statutory adoption pay and I've read online the following:-

*Where an employee is adopting two children, will he or she be entitled to two periods of adoption leave?

The Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/278 state that an employee's entitlement to adoption leave will not be affected by the placement of more than one child as part of the same arrangement. Where more than one child is placed with an employee as part of the same placement (eg twins or siblings of different ages) the employee will be entitled to only one period of adoption leave.

However, if another child is placed with the employee soon after the placement of the first child (ie a new placement under a separate matching certificate), provided that the employee satisfies the qualifying conditions, he or she will be entitled to another period of adoption leave. In these circumstances, the adoption leave relating to the second child will supercede the first period of leave. For example, if the second period of leave begins one month after the first period, the first period will come to an end after one month and the employee will be entitled to a further 52 weeks' adoption leave from that point.

If the employee qualifies for statutory adoption pay in relation to both children, the adoption pay relating to the first child is not brought to an end by entitlement to adoption pay relating to the second child. The employee will be entitled to two payments during any weeks where the two periods of adoption pay entitlement overlap.*

Has anyone done this, and can they tell me how it worked for them?

Thanks as always

xx


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## Wyxie (Apr 10, 2013)

We thought this was going to apply to us, and I looked into it, with help from AUK, and it was incredibly murky.

As far as we could work out, it depends on your work contract and you may need to get some advice on that to determine whether you qualify for the second lot of payments.  If you don't, you will also need to find out whether you are entitled to the second lot of leave unpaid, i.e. whether you will remain employed with the option to go back at the end of the second set of leave if you decided to take it in the event it was unpaid.  In the first instance I'd ask your employer and see what they say.  If they don't know and say they will look into it, I would suggest you get another copy of your work contract and get some advice yourself, as employers can be very slow to come back on issues like this.

In the end we worked out I was eligable for it, but sadly Social Services took so long to do anything, that in order to be eligible I would have had to return to work and put Wyxling in full time nursery for several weeks prior to placement of Bladelet.  In the circumstances, we had to decide that we simply couldn't do that, because it would likely disrupt Wyxling to the point that we were unable to have the second child placed anyway.  We made the decision to go ahead anyway and I handed my notice in so I'm now unemployed for the first time in my adult life.

Also, I really hate to be the one to put a downer on things as it all sounds brilliant, but I think it's sensible to try to distance yourself from the second child as much as possible until you know for sure it is going forwards.  We were in a situation exactly the same as this.  We had been told all along that basically, the second child was coming to us, and we had expected to have him around six months.  We had information about the second child, and were told all along that we would have first refusal.  We let ourselves get far too attached to a child that was in no way definitely ours.  Just after we were approved to adopt we were told that due to a change in circumstances in the birth family, we were no longer to be considered for the second child.  I was absolutely devastated; I had been thinking of this baby as ours for so long and it just never occurred to me that we may lose him like that.  We had prepared ourselves for the possibility that we may say no, but not that they might suddenly changed their minds.  It took a huge amount of time and effort to even get his Social Workers to speak to us about it and discuss the change in circumstances, which was fine and didn't cause any problems for us.  The wait was awful and giving Wyxling everything she needs from me when in that place emotionally was incredibly hard.

Social Services often make these promises, and sometimes they are kept, but often they're not.  Since we thought we were losing our daughter's brother I've spoken to a number of other people who've been in the same situation although for different reasons.  If you want to discuss in more detail happy to PM.

There's also the possibility that your first child will not be ready for a sibling they've never met to be introduced so soon into placement.  We questioned whether Wyxling would be for a while.

That said, things often do work out and I really hope it does, but please be careful not to pin your hopes entirely on this second child, as it can backfire horribly.

I really hope you're entitled to the second lot of pay.  We're going to be broke for the next few years, and I had to give up my job, so I'm going to need to look for something with silly part time hours in a year or so's time if I want to go back.


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## MummyElf (Apr 11, 2013)

Hi Wyxie

Thanks for your reply. I know exactly what you're saying ref the second child but to be honest we're not really thinking about it yet in an 'attaching' kind of way because the birth of that child is so imminent that we will barely be settled with the first before the second arrives if we did concurrency and if we didn't, I will be so busy with her that I won't have time to worry about when the second one will arrive, which could be months down the line. I'm not attached to the second one as such because I'm thinking only of our daughter-to-be, but I would understandably be gutted if it didn't happen because I do think LO should have her full sibling placed with her if at all possible, more for her than us really. I'm already getting used to the uncertainties of SS and having worked in family law for years now and done a lot of care proceedings work I've seen my fair share of weird things happen.

I'll raise the issue of the possible second baby if it does go that way but I'm not telling my employers anything at this stage because of the amount of variables and they're not the sort of people I would tell things to unless I had to; discretion isn't their middle name and my business would be bandied about the whole company. 

So I guess I will see what happens and take appropriate advice at that time.... 

Lilyelf


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## Wyxie (Apr 10, 2013)

Sounds like you know what you're doing.  You must be so exited.  Have you been given a date for panel/introductions yet?

I also (used to, I guess now) work in family law, and am used to dealing with Social Workers, so it was doubly stupid to let myself think we'd have the second child, but by the time the care proceedings were over and we were approved we just believed what we were being told by the Social Workers because everyone was saying the same thing.  No problem, no one else to be considered, etc.  We had a real grilling at panel the second time we went back to be approved, which I can understand particularly in view of Wyxling's difficulties, but once we'd got through that part it seemed like it was all going to be plain sailing - until the baby landed of course!  I think for us the baby was always part of the plan unless anything really untoward happened.  We wanted two children, one a baby, and we were matched with Wyxling, who was older, at least in part because there was a baby on the way and we wanted a baby, if that makes sense.

You could try speaking to AUK or BAAF and see if they can shed any light on your adoption pay situation without speaking to your employers now, or speak to ACAS potentially.  All you really need is a copy of your contract.  It's hard to plan financially without knowing really.  

I was very lucky in that my firm were incredibly supportive.  I'm really hoping they take me back in a year or two's time!

All the best,

Wyxie xx


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## MummyElf (Apr 11, 2013)

Well the only info we have at the moment is that panel will be in June - LOs SW is away so until she returns we don't have the exact date but I'm really hoping its sooner rather than later and we're meeting the FC in the very near future so quite excited about that. FC is highly respected and been doing it a very long time which reassures me as I know your LOs experience of FC was awful and I know of another two cases in 'real life' where the FC situation was bad. Pretty appalling to think LOs can be so let down in a place that is meant to be safe   

As soon as ratification has occurred intros will start, so all things being equal, we will hopefully be doing intros and bringing LO home end of June/early July.

It's ver exciting, but I am a bit of an emotional monkey right now!!


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## Wyxie (Apr 10, 2013)

Sounds like things are happening pretty quickly now after the slow start.  That's about the same timescale we're looking at for Bladelet.  

I'm not surprised you're very emotional, there's so much going on and when you finally realise it is happening it's scarily fast, after all the uncertainty before hand.

Wyxie xx


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