Recently dismissed au pair, Richmond upon Thames area

[Tr0tter1]

We recently had no option but to dismiss our au pair on the grounds of gross negligence.

We believe she has recently (last 3 weeks) found another au pair job. Unsurprisingly in the circumstances, we have not been asked to provide a reference. More information has come to light since her dismissal, and we feel obliged to warn her new family of her unsuitability to be looking after young children. Do you think we should try and reach out to her new family, and if so, is MN a good place to do so?

Sorry to read that. Yes should definitely warn new family and for benefit of other parents would be worth doing it via MN (obviously maintaining necessary confidentiality wrt wider audiences)

can you report her to some of the AP agencies in case they placed her? Or AP world online?

Do you think she's got a job locally to you? If so, you could put your area and au pair into a gumtree search and see what comes up. It would then be fairly easy to contact the parents who fall into that category.

If you don't get anywhere and it is a safeguarding issue, I would consider contacting social services for advice.

Thanks for your advice. My own feeling is that we should definitely try and contact the new family. It wasn't a case of misconduct, more negligence. There were no long term consequences for us, but next time there could be.

I'll search on Gumtree and AP World

Why on earth do people employ Au Pairs? Is it because they represent cheap childcare?

There are so many posts on this site from people like this poster who seem to have serious problems. Is this because people expect Au Pairs to be a cheap option for childcare?

Au Pairs are not childcarers. They are usually young people who have no experience or training as childcarers. They want to come to this Country to experience living with a family, learn the language by attending collage and in return do a bit of BABYSITTING for a bit of POCKETMONEY!

Why is it that people now are expecting them to be virtually full time Childcarers and Housekeepers for peanuts in terms of pay and then get upset when it doesn't work?

Surely if you want Childcare and the best for your child you seek out a qualified and experienced childcarer like a Nanny, Childminder or use a Nursery?

Some Nannies do housework (I never understand this I must say) but you may need to consider hiring a cleaner.

Why complain about the standard of care when you hire an young untrained person to do a professionals job?

There is a saying: Pay peanuts, get a monkey!

What on earth could the AP have done that would constitute gross negligence?

That's what I thought. You wonder what responsibility the AP was expected to take on?

Also I think you are entering very dodgy ground warning others about an individual in the way you seem to want to do on forums or Social media sites because you could lay yourself open to Legal Issues.

Sorry OP, I'm just struggling to think of non criminal things I'd class as gross negligence. If your DC were harmed in any way that would be a matter for the police, if it was a prolonged neglect you would have noticed it already.. if she hit them it's a matter for the police. I don't think it's fair to hunt down her new employers. If it turned out she was a prostitute I might balk, mind.

You don't know what the OP/ au pair did - so why lecture the OP? How do you know she was paid peanuts? OP, I'd certainly like to be warned were I employing an au pair right now

Unless you say what she did it is impossible to say whether you should do anything. On the face of it I would say you are being unfair and rather vindictive to try and prevent her from finding a new job. Why on earth haven't you explained properly?

adp73 for some reason I can't not rise to your stupid bait.

I employ an au-pair because:

• I have the space in the house to do so
• I need childcare only for outside school hours - so it creates a role where there is free time 09:00 - 15:20 each day - so I'm looking for the kind of person keen to do these kind of hours
• When I advertised the position as an au-pair I had 500+ applications, so it's clearly a sought-after opportunity (in contrast, I don't have even 10 childminder options locally...)
• It is probably cheaper for me than a nanny (difficult to do direct comparison because of the 'living in as part of family' cost) - and why shouldn't cost be a factor in my childcare decision? I'm not a billionaire.
• I don't have childcare qualifications, and I'm a mother. I'm not convinced that formal qualifications are the be-all and end-all for this kind of role. But that said, my last three au-pairs have been qualified teachers with a degree - far more highly qualified than nursery workers that previously looked after my kids.

So there.

Stealing ? Drinking the gin ? Flirting with the man of the house?
Now we want to know !

Au Pairs are usually paid a max £100 per week and often a lot less which is very very little money, my son earnt more than that babysitting 3 times a week. Before I get shot down i know they also get their board for that as well. However you would be expected to pay a live in Nanny a lot more money than that.

I don't care if whoever got over 500 replies and some were from qualified Teachers, though I would worry why a qualified Teacher would want to work for peanuts. Yes it means perhaps a lot of people want to come to this Country and learn English but it doesn't alter the fact that it is unregulated cheap babysitting and it will go wrong with really no where to go unless a criminal offense is committed. It is surely a risk the parent takes when they choose this kind of care for their children. The same way they do choosing any childcare but at least Childminders and Nurseries are Regulated and the people in them have to comply with Regulations, be First Aid Trained and trained in Child Protection as a min they are also checked for their suitability to work with children. It is my understanding that no such checks are carried out on AP and no min standards of training are required.

How you can compare your abilities as a parent to your child with those of a complete untrained stranger I don't know.

I'm guessing that happened, whatever that was, when the au pair had sole charge of DC. Which she shouldn't.

Did she use the wrong kind of polish on the silver? I hate when they do that.

Au pairs are perfectly able to have sole charge of children over 3. A live in nanny would get about £350 net per week for probably 50 hours. So an au pair getting £100 net per week for 25 hours isn't so ridiculous, when you take into account the lack of qualifications and that they often get phone credit and/or bus pass too.

Maybe she left drugs lying around near the kids?

That's one scenario off the top of my head.

If she has done something so terrible you feel the need to tell someone then that someone either needs to be the police or social services. Not posting all over the internet.

What on earth could she have done?

For those of you to have offered genuine advice (probably those of you who have or have had au pairs yourselves), many thanks.

For the rest of you, here's a reminder of the aims of MumsNet:-

"Our aim is to:
•Make parents' lives easier by pooling knowledge, advice and support.
•We try, as far as possible to let the conversation flow and not to over-moderate. Mumsnet is a site for grown-ups."

OP Perhaps you should report the incident to social services or the police, if appropriate. If it's no concern of either of those agencies then perhaps you should leave it.

Eh?

You sound a bit like hard work.

OP you still haven't said what the au pair has done, you cannot expect good advice if we don't really know the full story..

adp73 - there are also NO minimum standards for training and qualifications for a nanny. Anyway can decide one day to be a nanny and call themselves that. 2 of the nannies who I employed back in London were au pairs first.

As long as you host someone who has a liking for children, a sense of responsibility and a bit of common sense, you can train them to be decent babysitters.

Most people who hire an au pair do so because they haven't enough hours of work for a nanny. Decent, reliable after school nannies are very difficult to get outside London, understandably most want/need to work full-time.
Even if you were to annualise the hours to cover school holidays, unless the child is at a private school with long holidays (as I see yours were), it doesn't make huge difference to the weekly pay. Most nannies wouldn't want to be sitting there anyway with not much to do all day, even if it made sense financially.

When we moved out of London, I just couldn't get the flexible childcare I needed.
We have three mornings when the boys and DD need to be at nursery/school at the same time. Three afternoons where the children have different activities at the same time. Then several occasions when matches/piano recitals/drama productions/my studying/working clash with pick up times for my DD/DS. She also makes the children's tea so that I can help the boys with their homework and 11+ practice.

In short she makes my life and the children's lives easier and better. We don't need a nanny - we need a babysitter and that's what you get with an au pair.