The initiative to grant employees in social assistance, foster care and childcare institutions up to the age of three, allowances of PLN 1,000 per month originated in the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. President Andrzej Duda has just signed amendments to laws allowing for the introduction of programmes through which such allowances can be granted.

As Minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk emphasised, this money will allow people to live with dignity and feel that the difficult work of female and male social workers is respected and appreciated in Poland.

These solutions also apply to family foster care, family-type children's homes and professional foster families.

During parliamentary work, the head of the family ministry emphasised that foster care should resemble a caring and nurturing family home as much as possible. The system, in her opinion, needs a deep, systemic reform and the introduction of these allowances is a first step in this direction.

For whom are the allowances from 1 July?

The amendments signed by President Andrzej Duda are intended to enable the introduction of government programmes that will allow the payment, as of 1 July 2024, of an allowance of PLN 1,000 gross to workers employed under a contract of employment in organisational units of social assistance (social assistance centres, district family assistance centres, social services centres, social welfare homes, specialist counselling centres, including family counselling centres, crisis intervention centres, support centres, including support centres for people with mental disorders, day care homes, homes for mothers with minor children and pregnant women, shelters for the homeless, shelters for the homeless with care services, self-help clubs), foster care and family support system (family assistants, foster care coordinators, employees of foster care centres, persons employed to assist professional foster families and family-type children's homes based on an employment contract, employees of regional foster care and therapy centres, intervention pre-adoption centres, employees of day-care centres), childcare institutions for children up to the age of 3, which are run by local governments (nurseries, children's clubs, day carers), persons who act as professional foster families and run family-type children's homes.