You have the right to make a request to take time off work to look after a young child when you have completed at least one year’s continuous service with your current employer.
You must, of course, also have parental responsibility for the child.
Parental responsibility is defined as follows:-
- The person is the parent – named on the birth certificate of a child aged under 18 years old, or
- Has adopted a child under the age of 18.
- This right lasts until the child’s eighteenth birthday.
- Therefore both parents will be entitled to begin taking parental leave either when a child is born, or placed for adoption, or when they have completed one year’s service with an employer whichever of these two dates is the later.