Adopting a child is a wonderful thing to do. It’s a privilege to open your home to a vulnerable child. Often the children placed for adoption need additional time settling into their new homes.
adoptive parents are asked to take a years leave from work to help settle the child and bond with them to create a secure attachment, in the same way birth parents take maternity or paternity leave. 

When having a birth child, the statutory maternity pay offered is the same whether you are employed or self employed. But when you adopt, it’s only the employed adopters that have the right to any adoption pay. Self employed adopters receive nothing to support them.

For self employed adopters, to take this time off without any statutory support, most have to rely on savings. This can make it difficult for adopters especially single adopters if their only source of income is their own business. 
It may even put a lot of people off of adopting as they don’t think they can afford to take a year off work unpaid.

Please help by signing this petition to make statutory adoption pay available for self employed adopters and lets get more children into their forever homes. Thank you x