More adoption and foster parent leave for tenured civil servants

The federal government wants to align adoption and foster parental leave for statutory officials with contract officials and the private sector. The proposal is on the agenda of the Council of Ministers on Friday, Minister of Civil Service Petra De Sutter (Groen) reports.

Tenured officials adopting a child under the age of 10 have so far been entitled to six weeks of adoption leave per parent. The maximum age of the adopted child has now been raised to 18 years, and those who adopt multiple children will receive an extra two weeks' leave.

Statutory officials who take in a foster child for a long time have not yet been entitled to foster parent leave. From this year, they will be given six weeks leave per parent for every minor foster child that they take care of for more than six months.

Finally, this year there will be an extra two weeks for both adoption and foster parent leave, to be divided among the parents. That extra leave will be progressively increased until 2027 to five extra weeks of leave.

The foster parent and adoption leave of permanently appointed civil servants is thus equated with the leave of contract workers in the federal public services and of employees in the private sector. In addition, the reform is also important for the work-life balance of civil servants, says Minister De Sutter. “Creating a home for a child, some of whom come from problematic backgrounds, requires attention and commitment from the new parents and it takes time,” she says. "We want to give that to the parents and the child too."

Funeral leave

Parliament is also currently working on an extension of the bereavement leave for employees. De Sutter is considering an extension from four to ten days of paid bereavement leave for federal officials, she says.