The Montgomery County Commissioners announced a new parental leave policy for eligible county employees that will provide up to six weeks of paid parental leave during the 12 months immediately following the birth, adoption, guardianship or foster care placement of a child.

The new policy goes into effect starting Feb. 1st and will apply to all full-time employees regardless of gender who are not represented by a union or bargaining unit. “We recognize the importance of assisting our employees who become new parents to achieve a worklife balance. By doing so, we help ourselves by providing a benefit that has been shown to help employees, families and communities and will lead to increased morale and decreased turnover,” said Dr. Val Arkoosh, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. “We fully expect this policy also will improve our ability to recruit and retain high quality employees to better serve our residents”

Montgomery County is the first suburban county in Southeastern Pennsylvania to adopt a paid paternal leave policy. The six weeks paid leave can be taken as a block of time or on an intermittent basis within the first year of the birth, adoption, guardianship or foster care placement.

It will run concurrent with the 12-week Family and Medical Leave Act that an employee may take, meaning an employee can take the six weeks of paid leave and an additional six weeks of leave that will be either unpaid or use accumulated vacation, personal or sick time.