Friday 8 March 2013

Nannies and Au Pairs in the UK


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 exam in English

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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