If you work, but earn low wages, you may qualify for Working Tax Credit. 

 

You may qualify for Working Tax Credit if you are a single parent working more than 16 hours a week and you are on a low income or if you are part of a couple with children and work more than 30 hours a week and are on a low income. The Working Tax Credit can also support the cost of registered childcare for working parents. This childcare element can help with up to 80 per cent of your eligible childcare costs. 

Child Maintenance Options: 0800 988 0988*
8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 4pm Saturday

 

For more information on Child Maintenance, you can visit the Child Support Agency (CSA). They make sure that parents who live apart from their children contribute financially to their upkeep by paying child maintenance. 

Parental leave offers qualifying parents the right to take unpaid time off work to look after your child or make arrangements for their welfare. It can help you to spend more time with your child and strike a better balance between your work and family commitments.

 

You have the right to parental leave if you have been employed by the same company for a year or more, are an employee with a contract of employment (most agency and casual staff do not have the right to parental leave), and you are a parent named on the child's birth certificate or are named on the child's adoption certificate or have legal parental responsibility for a child under five (under18 if disabled).

 

Either parent has the right to parental leave. If you are separated and you do not live with the children, you have the right to parental leave if you keep formal parental responsibility for the children. Foster parents do not have rights to parental leave.

Flexible working lets you ask your employer for a new working pattern to help you care for your child. You have a right to request a flexible working pattern if you've got a child aged under six or a disabled child under 18. Your employer has to consider your request seriously.

 

To have the right to ask for flexible working, you must have worked for your employer for at least 26 weeks, be the child's mother, father, adopter, legal guardian or foster parent - or be the partner of one of these, have responsibility for the child's upbringing or be making the application so that you will be able to care for the child.