Hi, my name is Nick55!

Nick55

Hi, 1st post, I have 3 children, 2 of which have ASD, they are both very different and 1 needs to attend a special school, there is a distance of 25miles between the 2 schools my children use, we have no support to rely on and both schools finish approximately the same time so we both need to be on hand for the school runs, my employer has always allowed me to swap shift patterns with colleges to allow me to be at home for the end of school, suddenly my employer wants me to work a new shift pattern that means I'm not around to do school runs in the afternoon. this makes life for my family impossible, if my children weren't disabled this would not be a problem because they would attend the same school and all finish together. please excuse my naivety but does this constitute indirect discrimination of some kind?

I've been with my employer 13 years and recently a new leader has been introduced who I find very unhelpful in this matter and he's unwilling to try and help or investigate what can be done.

any advice would be very welcome

Doris_Scope

Hi @Nick55

A warm welcome to the community.

I can see how difficult that must be and having children at different schools can be so common when you have a disabled child.

This page on flexible working for parents and carers of disabled children might be helpful and this is a question and information on the subject of my employer wants to change my hours.

You said that your new leader is very unhelpful in this matter, so it might be good to organise an official meeting to talk things through and explain your situation in depth. Although you should not have to go into personal matters, it might help your case.

Parents of disabled children have the same rights of flexible work as parents of non disabled children, but if you have been working so long on your previous shift pattern, you could look into contract by conduct. This means that if you have been working those hours for a long period of time, then it can sometimes be seen as your permanent hours. It would be better to get advice around this though.

You could contact Disability Rights about this.

I hope this helps. Take care.

@Doris_Scope

Rachel_Scope

Hi @Nick55 and welcome to the community. I'm sorry your employer is being difficult and I hope it can be resolved quickly. @Doris_Scope has given some great information there and I hope it's useful to you. Please keep us updated.