Childcare.co.uk

[Asleeponasunbeam]

Seems to have changed since I last used it. Do you have to be a gold member in order to message someone? I thought it was just the advertisers who had to pay? I'm looking for a babysitter. Any other places to look? Thanks.

Yes, need to be Gold member to send a message to a non-Gold member. Monthly or annual subscription, repeat billing until you cancel.

To find local babysitters:
Ask friends, ask at school/nursery. Ask nursery staff.
Local advert in newsagents/community store.
Local magazine, local newspaper.

Gumtree.com has free listings in some areas I think.

I hate childcare.co.uk for this very reason.
They want me to pay £20 a month subscription - yet I'm the Nanny!
The advertiser should pay for the advert, don't charge the job hunters!

Well, exactly, blood! This person has paid her £20 pounds, I want to contact her, but won't because I have to pay £20 too!

Only 1 of you need to be a gold member, I was contacted by childminders when I was looking and wasn't a member, also I can contact parents when they aren't members now I'm looking for nanny work.

Its a really silly business model because so few members pay anything that the site is virtually useless. Probably less than 2% of users are gold members if my search results are anything to go by. If membership was only £2 per month instead of £20 their membership would increase more than 10-fold and they would make more money.

Here's a tip for childcare providers: Choose a childcare.co.uk username that you can also use as a web microsite name. Use a free microsite place like WordPress to create a simple webpage advertising your services and giving your email address. Whenever I see a childcare professional on childcare.co.uk who I would like to contact I always google their username and about a quarter of the time I've managed to find contact details and get in touch this way.

Or, if they use their own name, find them on Facebook and message them. That's what I did!

As a childminder I pay the subscription when I am looking for mindees. You also get free access to loads of courses while you are paid up.

Like them...
Add them as a favouite
They may msg you

When you look at a cm's profile the cm gets a message to say they've been viewed and by who. the cm will then contact you ( if they're a gold m,ember of course)

What i don't ever understands why parents won't pay the £20 for a couple of months to find a nanny. Where as if they went via an agency they could potentially be paying thousands for the agency to find a nanny for them.

I would pay it to find a nanny, and paid it myself while looking for nannying work. But I won't pay it to respond to an advert that someone else has already paid to post!

That's the thing though, people don't pay to post an ad on there, it is free to create a profile.

Is it? So I can create an ad for a babysitter? But they'd have to be a gold member to contact me? It's so confusing.

Yes, parents and childcarers can both create profiles on there and search for profiles. Neither can contact each other though unless one is a member.

Who should pay... parents looking for childcare, or babysitters/nannies looking for work?

Neither! I want to pay someone for the work, but not a middleman to find them.

I'll find another way!

How did parents find babysitters in the past?

Ask local teens/twenties, such as next door neighbours.
Ask local teens/twenties at youth groups such as cub/brownie helpers.
Ask local teens/twenties at church.
Ask local teens/twenties at pre-school/nursery.
Ask friends for recommendations of babysitters they use.
Advertise via postcard ad in newsagents, respond to babysitter ads in newsagents.
Advertise in local paper classified ads, respond to babysitter ads in local newspaper.
In some neighbourhoods there were sitter circles amongst friends/neighbours.

Anyone think of any other ways parents found babysitters 10-20 years ago?