Children’s charity offers more for dads

The UK branch of United Nations children’s charity Unicef is offering new dads a whole year of paternity leave.

Unicef UK has equalised its parental leave meaning men and women are entitled to the same amount of leave and pay when they become parents.

The move follows Save the Children boosting their paternity offer last year. That step was expected to kickstart change in the charity sector. The Unicef announcement suggests that is happening.

Family friendly policies

In a recent global report, Unicef revealed that despite universal growing acceptance of family-friendly policies, the UK is ranked among the least family-friendly of the world’s richest countries in terms of policies on child care and parental leave, after Switzerland, Greece and Cyprus, and urged transformative shifts in family-friendly work policies.

Remarkably it’s taken over two years since that report was published for the charity to update their own policies.

The UN also backed the original State of the World’s Fathers report in 2015. Successive editions of that report have focussed on getting dads to do more domestic work including childcare.

Martyn Dicker, Director of People at Unicef UK, said, “We are keen to see policies like ours become the norm and for the rights of caregivers and their children to be supported.”

He added, “I’m really proud that we are equalising parental leave for all of our employees in one policy. This is a genuinely important moment for us – it’s a big shift forward. It puts us in our rightful place as a sector leader in the way we support parents and caregivers to provide the best opportunities for children. I am hoping others will follow our example.”

Game-changing

New dad and senior corporate relations manager at Unicef UK Freddie Pite will benefit from the policy. He said, “As a new father and Unicef UK employee, it’s great to know that our new parental leave policy will allow me to play my role in my child’s development and that this is recognised as important by Unicef UK. This is game-changing for a family. Thanks to this policy change, all caregivers will now get the chance to take an equally active part in raising our children, bonding with them and to help provide them with the best start in life.”

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• paternity rights