Maternity Info

At last, you get some time off work. Not that you'll get chance to relax! Maybe you'll start that nesting process or maybe you'll take it a step too far like I did and start knocking down walls!

Whatever you're feeling, try and get some 'you' time. Come on, how often does that happen? If you're one of these women that needs to be busy or you feel guilty, than say to yourself that the baby needs you to chill out. Write it on your action plan!

The one thing you don't want to be spending time on right now is trying to access information about your maternity rights, how much you may get paid, whether your partner can get time off etc, so hopefully our information below will do that for you. Please get in touch if you feel we've missed anything out.

Maternity Rights & Pay

Did you know that you are entitled to get paid leave to go to your ante-natal appointments and classes? Did you know you can take up to 52 weeks off work? For the low down on your rights and how much you can expect to be paid while you're away click here

Paternity Rights

OK, so it's not so great for you dads but then you didn't have to carry a big heavy lump in your belly for nine months or have swollen ankles or moring sickness did you? You might not get a nice long break from work but look on the bright side - you get to talk to grown-ups. To find out if you are entitled to 2 whole weeks (yippee) from work click here

Employers

If you would like to know how to help your employees with childcare click here

Childcarers

For an informative guide on what to do if you are given childcare vouchers as your pay, click here

Childcare

Has the time come to return to work? Not sure what to do about childcare? We found 2 useful guides about what to do next. for the Working Families one, click here and for the Daycare Trust, click here

Child Trust Fund

If you’ve had a baby recently, you’ll have received a special voucher to open a Child Trust Fund (CTF) account for them. It’s a great way to save for your child’s future, so if you’re not sure what to do, don’t let it put you off – there’s lots of information available to help you. Try the CTF website: www.childtrustfund.gov.uk Or, if you’d prefer to speak to someone on the phone, call the CTF helpline on 0845 302 1470 (8am to 8pm, 7 days a week) for leaflets with more information, click here

Child Benefit

Child Benefit is a tax-free monthly payment to anyone bringing up a child or young person. It is not affected by income or savings so most people who are bringing up a child or young person qualify for it. You should claim Child Benefit as soon as your child is born. For more information click here

Tax credits

What are Tax Credits? Tax Credits are payments from the government to help with day to day costs for families and people on low income. You can claim two tax credits, Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit. Child Tax Credit is a payment to help parents and carers of children under 16 or qualifying young people under 20 (in full-time education or approved training). How much you get depends on your income. Working Tax Credit is a payment to top up the earnings of low paid workers (employed or self-employed), including those who do not have children. It helps to make work pay for low income workers. It can also include amounts to help you with childcare costs. If you want to find out how much you may get check out this handy online calculator

Ethical Investment

Want to ensure that your childs’ money isn’t used to buy arms or destroy the planet, then you might want to consider socially responsible investment funds for your Childtrust Fund. These fall into one of two categories - ethical or green/environmental. Ethical funds are administered in accordance with a wide range of ethical criteria, mainly using negative selection to avoid investment in companies associated with certain areas. Most ethical funds will also make assessments in relation to environmental impact. After using negative screening, positive vetting is then applied to many of these funds. Green or environmental funds invest in companies whose products, services or processes contribute to restoration and renewal of the ecology or to a cleaner and healthier environment. You may want to use a socially responsible bank like Triodos, who really care about what they are doing for your CTF or in fact any savings!

Other Info

Hope you have found the above information useful. There is so much information out there but we found the best resource to be the Working families website. Please click the logo below for any other info you need regading the topics above as they will probably fill in any gaps! Don't forget to come back to us afterwards though......