Maternity - Vacation pay for foster families

Under an amendment to the National Insurance Law, as of August 9, 2011, foster families are eligible for maternity allowance, which, in their case, is referred to as the foster parent allowance.

Eligible for a foster parent allowance are parents in a family that has been officially approved as a foster family and which has admitted to its home a child up to the age of 10 for the purpose of foster care for a period exceeding six months.

Conditions of entitlement

You must need all the following conditions in order to be entitled to the foster parent allowance:

1. You worked and decided to stop working in order to receive a child for foster care – entitlement is for the period during which you are not working.
2. Foster mother: if you accumulated a qualifying period of 10 work months out of the last 14 months, or 15 work months out of the last 22 months, you are entitled to a full foster parent allowance; that is, for 98 days. If you accumulated a qualifying period of six work months out of the last 10 months, you are entitled to a partial foster parent allowance; that is 49 days. 
   Foster father: If you accumulated a qualifying period of 10 work months out of the last 14 months or 15 work months out.
3. At least one year has elapsed since one of the foster parents received a maternity/paternity/adoptive parent/foster parent allowance.

The two partners in a foster family may split the foster parent leave between them under the following conditions:

• The period of foster parent leave is not less than 21 days for each parent.
• The parent who has been replaced (for purposes of the foster parent leave) has returned to his/her workplace or work. In the case of salaried employees, a letter of authorization from the employer must be submitted to the NII. Self-employed persons must submit to the NII a declaration that they have resumed work.

Period of entitlement

The period of entitlement to the foster parent allowance begins on the day that the parents receive the child in their home for the purpose of foster care.

• If the child is less than three years old and the qualifying period accumulated by one of the parents is 10 work months out of the last 14 months or 15 work months out of the last 22 months, you are entitled to foster care leave for 14 weeks.
  If you are a foster mother and you accumulated six work months out of the last 14 months, you are entitled to foster care leave for 7 weeks.
• If the child is between the ages of 3 and 10 and the qualifying period accumulated by one of the parents is six work months out of the last 14 months, entitlement for foster care leave is for a period of 4 weeks.