Family Caregiver Leave

Rule of Thumb

If you need to care for someone seriously ill in your family, you should look after them.

Family Caregiver Leave is another unpaid, job protected leave under the ESA. A frog is entitled up to eight (8) weeks of unpaid job protected leave per calendar year to provide care or support to family members. A qualified medical practitioner must issue a certificate stating the family member has a “serious medical condition”.

The family member suffering from the serious medical condition must be one of the following individuals:

• the employee’s spouse
• a parent, step-parent or foster parent of the employee or the employee’s spouse
• a child, step-child or foster child of the employee or the employee’s spouse
• a grandparent, step-grandparent, grandchild or step-grandchild of the employee or the employee’s spouse
• the spouse of a child of the employee
• the employee’s brother or sister
• relative of the employee who is dependent on the employee for care or assistance
• any individual prescribed under the regulations as a family member

In order to take the leave, a frog must provide their manager with written notice and, if requested by Treefrog, the certificate from the qualified health practitioner. The eight weeks can be taken consecutively or separately.Frogs may take leave for periods less than a full week (for example, single days, at the beginning, middle or end of a week), but if they do, they are considered to have used up one week of their eight-week entitlement. If the frog is on leave for two or more periods within the same week (for example, on leave on Monday and Thursday of the same week), only one week of the eight-week entitlement is used up. There is no minimum period of service requirement for frog to be eligible for this leave.