A major initiative of the President Bill Clinton’s first term, The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a US federal law requiring covered employers to provide employees job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. Qualified medical and family reasons include: personal or family illness, family military leave, pregnancy, adoption, or the foster care placement of a child.   The FMLA was intended “to balance the demands of the workplace with the needs of families.”  The Act allows eligible employees to take up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period to attend to the serious health condition of the employee, parent, spouse or child, or for pregnancy or care of a newborn child, or for adoption or foster care of a child.

Our friends at the Grieving Dad’s Project, an ASAP member, are working hard to encourage congress to pass the Parental Bereavement Leave (The Farley-Kluger Initiative to Amend the FMLA).  The ASAP Coalition is honored to support them in this endeavor.

“It is my strong opinion that the death of a child is one of the worst experiences that anyone can endure. I find it unacceptable that the death of a child is not included as a protected reason to qualify for the benefits that are set forth in the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993.” -Kelly Farley, Grieving Dad’s Project