“It is important for soon-to-be parents and those who are still planning to have a child to know what services the state and municipalities offer, what features should be considered. Having a baby comes with many opportunities and responsibilities, so far it has been quite difficult for new parents to find all the information they need,” said Nele Labi, Deputy Secretary General for Innovation at the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs. – There are many nuances that can affect the lives of families. Thus, the conditions for receiving childbirth allowance differ in different municipalities, and the system and amount of state family allowances change from time to time. That is why we have gathered information about state services and benefits into a single The Parent's Guide that covers the time until the child reaches the age of three. We want parents to be aware of all the support opportunities offered by the state, so that each person can use them in a timely manner.”
The information solution contains a timeline, where various events are outlined and related actions, which the future parent should do at a certain point in time in order not to miss out on the benefits intended for him. Important topics are also covered in separate articles, which are equipped with links to services and legislation. The Parent's Guide is available free of charge in three languages – English, Estonian and Russian.
"This is a very important IT project to provide e-government services to parents as logically and user-oriented as possible. To consolidate individual services into one life event service, there was cooperation across institutions. Everyone had their own role in this project: TEHIK developed an information service and combined it with RIA components”, added Margus Arm, director of the Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (TEHIK).
On the state portal eesti.ee, both the information service about the birth of a child and all services related to various life events are available. “In December 2022, work on the first two services was completed. We plan to add at least eight more similar sections to the state portal, where people can easily get important information,” said Director of the Information System Authority (RIA) Joonas Heiter.
The information service for having a child is part of the event-based services developed by the state. The aim of the project is to create a unified environment in which a person, faced with this or that event in his life, will be able to receive information and use the relevant public services as conveniently and simply as possible.
The information service has been developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Information System Authority and the Center for Health and Welfare Information Systems. Event-based services are financed from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
You can see the parent's guide here:
https://www.eesti.ee/en/family/having-a-baby
Press release from Ministry of Social Affairs