A – Absolutely we do. The Health Pod has everything an expecting, new, or veteran mom will need to record for their child’s health at her fingertips. At 10 inches long and weighing only 1.5 lbs, just like a newborn it is completely portable and easy to take with you wherever you go. Unlike newborns, however, it comes with instructions and guides parents on what is most important to keep - leaving parents feeling confident and organized. For more info and to find out where you can get one of your own visit www.healthpod.ca.

Time Management Tips For Working Moms

In today's world, everyone is busy.  People always seem to be rushing from one activity to the next and trying to do several things at once in an effort to save time.  Working mothers understand "busy"- they're basically working two full time jobs, and it's no wonder why working mothers often find it difficult to balance everything in a neat and organized fashion! Read more

All who have used these little slippers truly love them. Who wouldn’t with their butter soft leather, cute colors and wonderful ability to stay put. Read more

Adoption in the Workplace

Barb and Maxine work for a large corporation whose profit for the last quarter was $400 million. Both women are new moms, currently at home caring for their children. Barb will be at home for 52 weeks and will receive 85% of her regular salary. Maxine, on the other hand, is able to stay home for only 35 weeks during which she receives 55% of her usual salary. What is the difference? Barb is a biological mother; Maxine is an adoptive mother.

Both the Federal Government and the employer are treating these women differently, based on the way they have chosen to build their families. Their employer, like many organizations, the payments received from Employment Insurance so that employees receive full (or near full) salaries while they are off work.

In Maxines case, however, their employer does not extend the benefit to adoptive parents.

The Federal Government pays Employment Insurance (EI) benefits to provide financial assistance to new parents (currently 55% of average insurable earnings to a maximum of $413 / week). Maternity benefits are payable to biological mothers for a maximum of 15 weeks.  Parental benefits are payable to parents (biological or adoptive) for a maximum of 35 weeks. Thus biological parents are eligible for 50 weeks of employment insurance while adoptive parents hit the maximum at only 35 weeks. One adoptive parent is mounting a Charter of Rights challenge on this very issue in the E.I. Legislation.

Biological parents are provided with EI benefits over a one-year period comprised of:

a)   2 week disqualification period (i.e. no EI payments)

b)   15 weeks of maternity benefits

c)   35 weeks of parental benefits

Total: 52 weeks

Many employers also pay top-up wage compensation to their employees for the two-week E.I. disqualification period by topping up their wage to between 85% and 100% of their normal salary (i.e. the employer pays all of this benefit during the first two weeks). For the next 15 weeks, the top-up reduces by the amount of the E.I. maternity benefits (described above). Some employers also top-up the employees salary for the full 35 weeks of parental benefits as well.

As a result of complaints we received about how adopting parents were treated in the workplace, Sunrise conducted a limited and informal poll of its clients to see how widespread the differential treatment of adoptive and biological parents by employers is, and we were stunned by the responses. Many of our clients reported situations in which a biological parent receives top up payments, while an adoptive parent is refused. Here are some examples of what we heard:

Government of British Columbia: The B.C. Provincial Government is one of least discriminatory employers we heard about. It offers a top-up to both biological and adoptive parents (to its unionized and non-unionized employees.) It also offers adoptive parents a Pre-Placement Adoptive Leave. This leave allows adoptive parents to attend pre-placement visits for their homestudy or to complete legal requirements for the adoption while collecting 85% of their regular salary.
Government of Canada: A federal civil servant, who is an adoptive parent, received 93% of her wage by top-up for 37 weeks. The real irony is that the Federal Government treats its adoptive parent employees better than most employers do, but discriminates against all adoptive parents with its EI policy!
Police: The RCMP (a federal government employer) offers both adopting and biological parents the top-up for 37 weeks. Other police forces in British Columbia (Municipal forces) generally do not pay the top-up to adoptive parents. (The municipal public force in Saanich, B.C., however, does pay the top-up for 37 weeks).
Municipalities: One adopting parent reported that the Municipality she worked for finally gave her the top-up right after she filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
Hospitals: Regional Health Districts are the employer for nurses in British Columbia. One adoptive parent reported that in his hospital, biological parents receive a top-up on the EI Maternity Benefit only. No one receives a top-up on the Parental Benefit. Since adoptive parents don’t qualify for maternity benefits, they don’t receive any top-up at all.
Universities: Universities do not seem to take a consistent approach in how they treat their employee parents. Adopting parents employed by universities told us about a wide variety of benefits payable to adopting parents. Often these were inconsistent, unusual, and at times discriminatory. At the University of British Columbia, adopting parents get topped-up for 12 weeks, while biological mothers receive 20 weeks. At the University of Toronto, adopting parents receive 27 weeks of top-up, and biological mothers receive 3 weeks more. At Capilano College, parents on parental leave are topped-up to 80% of salary, and for parents on maternity leave to 90% of salary. Professors at Simon Fraser University  To do this, the maternity benefits not paid to adoptive parents by EI  are covered by the university.  Kudos to SFU!  are the only employees we found who were treated absolutely identically whether they were biological or adoptive parents.
Schools: We heard from many teachers across the province. School Districts in British Columbia bargain separately with the teachers union (BCTF). As a result, adopting parents (who are also teachers) receive different benefits depending on where they work. For example, Surrey Teachers do receive the top-up of 95% of salary for the first 2 weeks, 70% for next 15 weeks and zero for the balance of parental leave. North Vancouver District teachers receive 95% for the first 2 weeks, but then 70% for only the next 10 weeks (while biological mothers receive it for the next 15 weeks). Most other school districts do not pay top-ups at all to teachers. There is no rational basis for treating teachers, who choose to create their families by adoption, differently. One parent was told that top-ups are not paid to adopting parents because the school district follows Government of Canada rulings. This doesn’t accord with our findings; all federal government departments that we heard from do top up adopting parents. One adopting parent employed by the Burnaby School Board was recently refused the top-up. When she told her employer that she was filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, she immediately received a top-up.

Falling Between the Cracks
Some adopting parents are in a catch-22 situation and the problem may not be resolved until a parent takes action. We heard from several British Columbia parents who reported that employers dodge responsibility by saying it is up to the union to ask for benefits through the collective bargaining process.

One city police department we heard from only offers the top-up to biological parents. A Port Moody police officer said, “I am a union member and was entitled to nothing under the collective agreement. However, we were in the middle of negotiating a new one, and I asked for a provision to be added. I was unsuccessful”.  

Pursuant to Labour Relations legislation, unions are required to represent minority interests (like those of adopting parents). Failure to do so can lead to a complaint with the Labour Relations Board. Exercising that legal right against your Union, however, can be a scary prospect.

Another adoptive parent reported: “I wasn’t sure if there are many others in the same boat as myself, and considering the extremely daunting task of applying for change in our organization (my employer is Vancouver Coastal Health), I have not bothered to try. I would have to put forth a motion to the union (membership = 40,000) and the union would then vote on whether or not to pursue this issue with the Health Authority and ultimately the Government. Another union colleague who adopted several years ago felt the same as I do now.”

Many adopting parents had similar experiences when they approached their union. They were told that nothing could be done. Studies in the USA show that less than 1% of eligible employees receive adoption employment benefits. No wonder adoptive parents can feel lost in big unions!

What Can Be Done?
In a landmark 2002 study, 94% of respondents stated that adopting parents should receive the same benefits in the workplace as biological parents. It is clear our society feels overwhelmingly that adopting and biological parents should be treated equally. This doesn’t seem right. Large government employers (such as hospitals, health districts, municipalities and school boards) should not justify continuing to discriminate by claiming that the unions need to ask for it. They should take responsibility and end the discriminatory treatment. Employers should treat parents equally, whether they give birth or adopt. If an employer pays an E.I. top-up to a biological parent, then the same compensation should be paid to an adopting parent. To not do so is discrimination.

The need for change is apparent and many parents expressed an interest in making that change happen. Unless adopting parents object, this discrimination will not end. One possibility is to file a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal. The most effective solution may be for adoptive parents to lobby their MLAs and MPs for legislative change.  How about a law that simply says adopting parents and biological parents must be treated the same in any workplace.  (After all 94% of society already thinks this is what should happen)

Talk to your employer and/or your union officials. If your organization tops up biological parents, insist that they treat adoptive parents equally.

We also heard about a few employers who give their employees a lump sum payment to help with adoption expenses. These payments ranged between five and ten thousand dollars.

This appeal is currently making its way towards the Supreme Court of Canada. The appeal at the Federal Court of Appeal is scheduled to be heard March 29 - 30, 2007.  For a review of the issues in this case see http://www.bcadoption.com/afabc_news_detail.asp?newsid. The rules about E.I. Supplemental payments (Top-Ups) are set out at http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/

The Dave Thomas Foundation in the USA has established a website with materials and assistance to help employers establish adoption friendly workplaces - see http://www.adoptionfriendlyworkplace.org/ 

One adopting couple has written an impassioned plea for parents to lobby their MP’s to help end discrimination against adopting parents. See http://www.bcparent.ca/articles/adoption/overcoming_discrimination.html

In Ontario court the courts have not been sympathetic to adopting parents.  In a case called Shafer the Ontario Court of Appeal decided that the discrimination built into the EI legislation did not contravene the Charter of Rights.

The information in this article has been provided by http://www.sunriseadoption.com, BC adoption agency Sunrise Family Services Society, and was obtained from a limited survey of Sunrise clients. The next step is to broaden the scope of this investigation to the BC and Canadian adoption community as a whole. If you know of someone who has had a similar experience (good or bad), please http://www.sunriseadoption.com/contact contact Sunrise. Sunrise would like to understand the full extent of this problem in British Columbia and Canada and will publish the results of the final survey.

Here’s Baby…Now What?
By Meralon Shandler, of MamaSpeak

So, your pregnancy went well with hardly any hiccups.  Labour was a lot of work of course, but pretty do-able in the end.  Now, you have this adorable baby in your arms to love and cuddle and share with the world.  But, somehow, things don’t seem to be falling into place very easily.  Sometimes you feel like crying for no reason, sometimes you snap at your partner, and sometimes you don’t even recognise yourself anymore….sound familiar?  You are not alone!  Becoming a new Mom is a daunting experience at the best of times, and most of us go through some period of adjustment before we figure out our baby’s special ways.

During pregnancy, there is a wealth of information available to us – in prenatal classes, on the internet, in books, from our care providers – so we can be well prepared for anything that comes our way.  Postpartum, however, is a whole other ballgame.  Yes, we can gather information from all those areas mentioned above, but, having a newborn to think about and care for every day doesn’t leave us with a lot of time to do research.  And in the end, I have often found that our babies teach us what we need to know – if we listen.  Trusting your instincts with all decisions is a good piece of advice for life in general, but comes in extremely handy for parenthood.  You may do things differently than your best friend, but if you stick to what feels right for your family, you will likely feel more confident and empowered.

And what about coping with the often overwhelming feelings we encounter?  Feeling sad, frustrated, or guilty that we are not “doing enough” for our children?  It’s the common “Mom guilt” again.  Talking with other Moms is often a really good way to process these feelings, and if they persist (as in Postpartum Depression), seek the help of a professional via your GP.  Making connections through Moms groups, fitness classes, online chat groups, and community centres are all positive ways of coping with your new career – one which none of us have had much training for.  Society tends to expect us to already know what to do, but there is no set manual for having children, so we have to write our own.

And don’t forget to give to yourself, too.  The key to a content baby is a balanced Mom, so give yourself a treat and get out to the spa once in awhile, have a coffee with a friend, leave baby with Grandma and do something that rejuvenates you.  Being a new Mom takes a lot of energy and you deserve to have a break on a regular basis.  Every day in fact – ok, maybe that’s pushing it a little in the first few weeks, but after that, work it into your schedule.  You’ll find that you just might like it enough to continue….

Meralon through MamaSpeak offers information and programs to help Moms, Dads and families with the transition into parenthood.