au pair doesn't want us to talk to her current family - what to do

its very personal thing,some girls click with some families and not others. Think about it,sharing your house is hard work,you may have 20 great friends but how many of them could you share a home with and not want to strangle after a few days
Have had aupairs we got on great with and aupairs we were happy to leave us,one families GEM can be another families Horror, so a reference from the family even a great one doesnt mean she will be great for you,of course it will tell you if she is a thief or tantrum thrower,but if they say she is sullen and stroppy it may be her response to her treatment by them.

Gosh i hope i make sense

It might be awfully underhand but could you ring and check a reference as if you wanted her to babysit one evening for you and wanted to just have a chat about her with current family? You can probably get a lot from just a 5 minute phone conversation and ask some basic but important questions. Of course that's not going to be much help if you want to know about her ironing skills....but childcarewise it might. Having said that my current boss had a ridiculous detailed conversation with a potential babysitting family the other day - they wanted to know about cooking and everything. My boss told them that if I was doing babysitting on a Saturday evening I probably wasn't going to be doing half the stuff they were asking about. I changed my mind about sitting for them after that (visions of turning up and being presented with 3 hyper children and a list of chores while the parents swanned off sprange to mind).

Do, of course, offer her an evening's babysitting if it salves your conscience doing it that way!

its tricky as an ap or live in nanny, and athene and others have said, the ap gives her notice and gets kicked out, having no job and no where to live

saying that, i wouldnt offer a job without checking refernces, so a letter saying subject to ref the job is hers is good

I agree with the trial period. But (if you can be bothered), meet up with her and explain that: it's important to be mature about these kind of things; nobody expects their au pairs to stay forever, and they usually only boot them out for gross misconduct (one of mine went for hiding other people in her room for example, but even then I gave her a few days to sort herself out); she should say that she wants to leave and give them reasonable notice; and give her a date when she can come to you if she has a reasonable reference.

Regarding the OP - I would take her on with a trial period of 4 weeks in the contract.

Just want to post that I'm very happy with my current AP. I've read a few posts along the lines of "AP scare stories - just read the threads on MN". So just wanted to post good news for a change. Not a space ship plan in sight!

Oh jeez, I obviously meant "I never talked to current nanny's previous..." seeing as I employ only one nanny.

Fab news, Jura, on the new au pair.

I can't believe you didn't ask her if she puts loos in the spaceship plans. You are slacking off in your old age.

Quint, everyone looks for a new job behind current employer's back. That is how it's done because no one with half a brain would announce they want to leave until they have a place to go.

And how do you know she hasn't tried to iron out the problems?

Also, this candidate has references from previous jobs which I assume have come back good.

Come to think of it, I never talked to current nannies previous employer. But, hey, at least they didn't call me!!

But asking about their views on spaceship design is so important! Oh No!
I have a new recruitment question - no longer will I use - What types of things do you like to eat? I will substitute it with - Will you use your time away from family and friends to go on an impossibly strict diet thus being a bad example to my children and making grocery shopping a nightmare and not having enough energy to complete your jobs (but still have enough to go to the gym each day)?

Quint - I have had several changers, they've been very good. It doesnt necessarily mean a bad aupair.

millarkie - Ive already been through the uk au pair nightmare. Nobody wants to come to a family with 4 children who lives in a crap part of town.

Au pairs are in such a vulnerable position, as Athene says, they often have no contract and can be kicked out on a whim by a malicious host family once they hand in their notice - this happened to both me and a friend of mine when we were au pairs.

I think her request is reasonable - offer her the job, dependent on a satisfactory reference, and don't take it up til after she quits. Or could you suggest a month's trial period or something?

It would be unlikely that a family would give an au pair over a months notice wouldn't it? (if they were not good at being an AP rather than because family didn't need an AP anymore).

A friend of mine had a similar issue. Though, she used an agency, and the agency said my friend could not get to speak to current family as they were so "high up in the music industry they needed to protect their privacy". She took the au pair on, having been impressed with her face to face. She soon regretted this, as the girl did not perform her duties, did not cook her son his tea after school, drank my friends alcohol during working hours, and literally used under her own bed as a rubbish bin. My friend had enough when she found the girl in her room going through her purse.

At the end of the day, you are considering taking a new girl into your home. What do you know about her?

1. She wants to leave her current family and is looking for work behind their backs.
2. She has issues, as her employer has been ill, the kids are challenging, and instead of trying to iron out these problems, she is looking to move on. Fair enough.

But what if, she knows she wont get a good reference? What if she has already been given notice?

Nighbynigh - don't let me put you off the UK Our first AP was fantastic.

agree, you can't possibly talk to her current family until after you've offered her a job.

sorry you are having problems, millarkie. tbh, the au pair situation (or lack of it) in teh uk, is one reason why I want to stay in germany. My ap (Zimbabwe) is completely reliable, and is committed to studying, rather than a gap year princess. We depend on her contribution to teh household.

You are right - it's certainly no worse than offering to host someone who you haven't even met, and has the added benefits of her already knowing the area, registered at College etc, so she's committed to staying local.
that she's not mine though..lots of issues going on in this household (eating problems, childcare issues, not doing half of her jobs issues, and not least...being judgey issues ). If you know anyone local looking for an ornamental AP please let me know

When my current nanny gave notice to her family (she was an au pair for them and they treated her like a slave), they kicked her out three days later. So, I invited to come to my house and hang out for a few weeks until my then current nanny had finished her time with us. Another mumsnetter who I know both on and off of these bords a couple of weeks later offered an au pair job to some. Same thing happened. Next day, existing family kicked her out.

So, if I were an au pair, you bet I would keep schtum until I had a job secured... in writing.

Offer her the job in writing, pending good references. To be honest, I wouldn't hand in my resignation until I had a firm offer / signed contract. I don't blame her for wanting the offer first. What if these people kick her out and then you decidee to hire someone else?

Yup, that's a good idea - you could offer her the position dependent on a good reference (also means she isn't likely to turn into a nightmare for current family until she leaves).
I would worry tbh, since if she is actively looking for another family but obviously not spoken to current family it means that she isn't a great communicator (and you need APs to be able to communicate about awkward things).

Have you interviewed her face to face? How long has she been with current family?
It's a hard call, for a nanny I would always resort to previous references and wouldn't dream of contacting their current employer before the nanny had resigned..but for an AP, where they may have worked before but it's the whole 'living with a family' side of things too...I would feel so much better if I could check out that side of things with current family...but that's probably because our current situation is a bit taxing to say the least.

If she's not mine - could you take mine anyway? Please? She's very ummmm....ornamental!

I'd make it clear that the job with you ultimately depends on a good ref from this family then it's up to her if she wants to hand her notice in with the slight uncertainty of the job with you not working out. If she's confident of a good ref I wouldn't have thought it would worry her for you to suggest this.