I think I’d be way more concerned about whether the parent had used au pairs before.
we had au pairs- actually young men which was brilliant for our 2 ds. Had them all the way through their primary school years mainly to do walking to and from school bit and a bit of afternoon activivty once back form school - usually a lot of playing at the rec and generally wearing the kids out 🤷🏼♀️🤣🤣🤣
BUT,it is a lot of work for parent, and in effect you become a parent to the au pair as it’s often their first stint away from home and in a foreign country where their language is still pretty basic. You’re there for logistic sorting, emotional support (girlfriend issues🤦♀️, but we also dealt with a bereavement) and delivering a lot of cultural and language learning, in addition to their language school formal lessons. You, as parents, also spend a lot of time with au pair if you’re doing your part of the deal.
they relied a fair bit on my husband, and whilst I was a bit of “mum” to them they clearly preffered to broach more difficult issues with him as well as the old pub/sport type stuff they enjoyed togther.
being in a household with just a parent of opposite sex to au pair is going to be more difficult - she may feel more isolated due to having less connection socially. She CANNOT rely on her social life circling on child care and language - she needs that in her actually new home too to feel valued by the family she is temporarily part of
However, it sounds like a lot of what’s being offered is more of a cheap nanny …and I’d be really concnered that in that arrangement, the dad is going to dump a whole bunch more onto her in terms of childcare and little expectation of what he is doing to support her other than throwing “perks” at her. She doesn’t need gym memebrship, she needs committment if she gets stuck someone at midnight she is safe to call him and he will come and pick her up just like you as parent would. She needs to know he will help her navigate language issues and cultural differences, that she can sit with him in the evening and use him to practice her language at full immersion over say, TV watching etc. and they have something in common to chat about at end of day, over breakfast and over the long weekends when they’re both in the house.
if he has a track record of having female au pairs before I’d be more comfortable. BUT she needs to interview him on hte phone too - ask him about this stuff. If she is his Guinea pig then be a lot more conscious
also make sure she is with an agency in the country she’s going to. If there are any issue around concerns or that it is simply not working, she needs to know how it will work in terms of her leaving placement and being allocated to a new one. We had that once, the lad came and he was not used to quiet rural life and got very homesick, we went to agency with him , they placed him with family in London, he had friends there, we rehired someone new. It happens and is not an issue as long as agency has got her back totally.
make sure you are always able to extract her urgently and put her in pace of safety over any situation even slight issues. Again that doesn’t just apply to working with single dad. Shit can happen with mums bullying au pairs as well.
make sure she knows she hasn’t failed if it doesn’t work, she can try a new placement, and if she finds it isn’t for her, she will have still gained some self awareness about the placement.
always use an agency. They do the DBS type checks so make absolutely sure you check that.