Chinese speaking p/t nanny/babysitter hard to find

[Tencarat]

Hi. I am looking for a part-time Chinese speaking nanny and finding it difficult without having to pay ridiculous agency fees? Most agencies don't even seem confident in finding someone. I am quite flexible with time and experience. Any advice on where else I can look for a languge nanny/babysitter? Thanks

Not had any experience of this myself but just wondered if you were situated near any universities? I live near Herts uni, my son goes to Bristol uni and my daughter went to Birmingham. All 3 had a large number of Chinese students. It might be worth contacting the uni (if you are near one) to see if you could advertise with them. You may find a student that could fit your requirements around their studies.

I speak japanese is that helps? i can read chinese

*if

Hmmm. Unless you are Chinese yourself, might be difficult. Why don't you just make your kids do Pimsleur lessons? They have four levels of 30 lessons each with their Mandarin course. Much cheaper :)

Childcare.co.uk have an advanced search option which allows you to put in a search term which it looks for in the whole text of the person's profile. You'll probably have to trawl through quite a few false positives, but hopefully you'll also get some who are or speak Chinese.

If you have a Chinese language nursery or a Saturday School near you, then the carers / teachers might be interested - but I've usually seen this happen where the child is already there.

Thank you all for your suggestions. nbee84 - great idea. I will definitely try some universities. nannyuk - sorry but I am looking specifically for a Chinese speaker. mimishimmi - I have not heard of that before. Will look into it. Strawberrybubblegum - thanks. I just had a look at that site.

Have any of you tried the site strawberrybubblegum talks about? Childcare.co.uk? What are your thoughts?

Thanks again