AU PAIRS

What is an Au Pair placement?
Au pair is a definition used by the Home Office and refers to a type of visa and the conditions relating to employment that attach to that visa. In brief the Home Office Guidelines state that:

An Au Pair placement is an arrangement where a single person between 17 and 27 comes to the United Kingdom to study English and:

• Lives for up to two years as a member of an English speaking family,
• Helps in the home for up to five hours a day with at least two full days off a week, in return for a reasonable allowance and their own room and full board.

Who can be an Au Pair?
Au pair visas are available to citizens of the following countries: Andorra, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Faeroe Islands, Greenland, Hungary, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, Turkey.

Although French, Swedish and other European Community candidates are often referred to as au pairs, this is fact a misnomer.

It is important to remember that an au pair is not an employee and the family is not an employer. The au pair has no tax code and can only receive pocket money. An au pair cannot be left in charge of young children and her duties are not those of a nanny, a housekeeper or a full time domestic.

What are an Au Pair's duties?
An Au Pair's role is to provide help to the family, mainly with the children. This can involve baby-sitting up to twice a week, preparing the children's breakfast and tea, helping them to get dressed, taking the children to school and collecting them and looking after them until the parents return home.

An Au Pair is expected to help with light housework such as washing up, tidying, hoovering, dusting, washing and ironing.

What can an Au Pair expect?
In London an Au Pair expects to be paid pocket money ranging from £60 -£80 a week depending on location, type of work and the family concerned. An Au Pair must have a separate room usually with a TV and a desk. The family provides all meals. An Au pair must also be given enough free time daily for her studies. The Au Pair is given one week paid holiday for every 6 months she is with the family and usually has Bank holidays as well.

Au Pairs at Nanny Search
At Nanny Search we have now started to place a few Au pairs due to demand from our clients whose children are at school full time. Although we cannot carry out the same vigorous vetting procedures that we use for our Nanny Candidates we are very selective in our recruiting policy.

Martha Zacsko has recently joined the Nanny Search team as our au pair co co-ordinator. 'Marty' is a qualified teacher from Hungary, 27 yrs. old and was an au pair herself for 2 years. She has recently graduated from Hendon College in Business studies and Computing. She is helping Nanny Search to recruit au pairs directly from the teacher training colleges in Hungary. We are also working with an agent to recruit the same calibre of au pair from Croatia. Again we have retained a Croatian National here to liaise and translate references for us. We will also arrange all the necessary paperwork for entry into the country.

We endeavour to only take on au pairs who are teachers or graduates in their native country with a minimum age of 21 and driving licences. Unlike other agencies we do not charge the au pair a fee in her country or use an agent who charges the au pair a fee. These au pairs must demonstrate a genuine desire to study English. In return we expect our host families to follow some guidelines.

• An au pair cannot be expected to take over the complete cleaning of a large house and the family will be expected to hire a cleaner in these cases. Generally, an au pair works an hour in the mornings, three hours after school with an hour's light housework during the day in addition to baby-sitting.

• We expect the family to support the au pair in her studies and to contribute to their cost. We can recommend appropriate schools.

• We cannot place au pairs in families with babies or younger children where the mother is out at work.

• The family must continue to pay the Au pair's allowance even when they are away on holiday and of course they must stock the house with food or leave money for purchases

• As with any other child carer it is not reasonable to expect your au pair to work all day Saturday and Sunday as part of her normal duties, although most are happy to provide extra care by arrangement.

• At Nanny Search we classify candidates from the European Community according to their background and experience in the normal way. We are uncomfortable with the term Au pair plus. If you are looking for this type of position please ask about our Mother's helps or housekeeper/nannies.

We hope our clients, new and old, will find our au pair service helpful and that it will solve some of their childcare needs.