The legal frame
The Equality Act 2010’s reasonable-adjustments duty (section 20) applies to disabled employees themselves, not to parent-carers per se. Parent-carers are protected from associative discrimination (section 13) and harassment (section 26) but the formal “reasonable adjustments” duty does not technically extend to them. That said, the practical adjustments below are within the gift of any good employer and are increasingly seen as the floor of carer-friendly practice.
Working-time adjustments
The single highest-impact category. Specific examples:
Predictable diary control. Allow the parent-carer to block recurring slots for SEND-related appointments — SENDCO meetings, annual reviews, CAMHS sessions — without justification. These slots almost always fall in school hours.
Flexible start and finish. A 7am start/3.30pm finish can be the difference between a viable work pattern and an unviable one for a parent doing the school run and managing after-school dysregulation.
Compressed-hours options. A 4.5-day compressed week (with Friday afternoon free) gives the parent-carer one predictable window for SEND admin per fortnight.
Term-time-only patterns. For parents managing the structural cliff edge of school holidays, a term-time contract is often the most retention-positive adjustment available.
Workload adjustments
Don’t reroute stretch work. The most common associative-discrimination trap is the quiet reassignment of high-visibility projects to colleagues “with more bandwidth.” The right adjustment is to ask the parent-carer what they want to take on, not decide for them.
Reduced travel / async-first meetings. A senior parent-carer can often deliver full output without in-person travel or 8am calls. Adjusting expectations around these has zero cost and high retention value.
Leave and benefit adjustments
Paid carer’s leave on top of the statutory unpaid week (typically 5–10 paid days/year).
Carry-over of unused annual leave. Many parent-carers cannot take leave during peak SEND-admin months (autumn term, EHCP cycles).
Practical advisory benefit. A vetted SEND specialist a parent can talk to in a 30–60 minute call (this is what Beaakon does). Saves the parent 10–40 unstructured hours per question.
Communication adjustments
A manager script. Train line managers to respond to disclosure with specifics (“I see SENDCO is on your calendar Thursday — want me to move standup?”) rather than the well-meaning narrowing (“are you sure you can manage this with everything you have on?”).
A named HR contact for carer questions. Separate from generic HR triage and separate from the EAP referral path. Parents disclose to humans, not inboxes.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.