Foster-to-adopt parents eligible for EI parental leave
Laurie Monsebraaten, Toronto Star Social Justice Reporter
Working parents across Canada who foster children with an intention of adopting them will be eligible for EI parental leave benefits under changes being announced in Toronto Wednesday. The change comes in the wake of a Toronto Star story last summer about the Children’s Aid Society in St. Thomas, in southwestern Ontario, which is working to ensure every child removed from a neglectful or abusive home is moved only once.
Under the agency’s pioneering “foster-to-adopt” program, if the child can’t go back home and becomes a Crown ward, the foster parents automatically become the adoptive family. The approach is aimed at stopping the harmful practice whereby vulnerable children bounce through numerous foster homes while child welfare officials determine if it is safe for them to return home. The goal is to ensure every child who becomes a Crown ward ends up in a forever family. ...continued ...
To read the entire article as it appears in the Toronto Star, click here ...
To learn more about Foster to Adopt, click here ...
To visit the Goverment of Canada, Human resources and Skill Development article, click here ...