An au pair is a young person
from 17 to 27 who wishes to come to the UK to study the English language.
As a nanny and au pair agency,
they use our au pairs abroad to be interviewed and have their references
checked and our agencies make sure that they come with police checks and medical
certificates. We do not take applicants direct nor from the internet.
Several websites promote free
services or a low payment but the applicants are not checked out and many
applicants ask the family to pay for their fare over, we have known young
people who have been sent money from a family then the au pair does not turn up
but cashes the cheque. We also know a story of a family who told me that they
brought in an au pair from one of these website, they went out one evening and
left the girl to babysit, on returning to the house they found that many
articles had gone ie TV and jewellery and the au pair had left the children
unattended, to use an agency gives you peace of mind that the au pairs are
checked out and we know their addresses etc in their country of origin and all
this has been checked.
Also, the au pairs who are
using free websites must beware as most of the families are families that do
not treat the applicants well, this is why they use a free website, they think
they can get away with making an au pair work longer hours and at weekends, the
applicants who go to these families have no back up from a UK agency and so
when some have contacted our agency we were not able to help them as they have
not been checked out
We have heard that prostitution
rackets are posing as families on the internet and when the female applicants
are met at the airport they are put into this..
Our au pairs speak basic
English and must go to college. They study for the ESL course and at the end of
June take the Cambridge
Au Pairs come normally to the
college Terms from September to June or from June to September. Due to our
agency being established since 1989 our nanny and au pair agency do get
applicants all year round.
The applicants stay normally
6 or 12 months, some au pairs stay with the family longer when they are happy
and want to do more English studies.
We do summer applicants who
come during the summer school holidays, they will normally work longer hours
and if they are working 40 hours then do make sure that they are paid at least
£100 per week. If an au pair is treated well it is always good to be generous
with her, some families pay for the college also. Summer au pairs do not go to
college.
So, an au pair is a super
addition to any family with school age children and as well as the 25 hours for
just £70 per week they will do 2 evenings babysitting for you included in the
£70. It is always nice to have someone living in to do the babysitting, you
don’t have to look at the clock to take the babysitter home and you don’t have
to drive them home.
Our nanny and au pair agency
place au pairs all over the UK, we give the au pairs a list of other au pairs
in the areas so that they are not lonely, many of our families are word of
mouth as they pass our details on to their friends once we have given them a
good service and the office is full of thank you cards and letters from both
the family and the au pair saying what a good agency we are.
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