Any recommendations for au pair agencies?

[Millarkie]

I have had enough of trawling through au pair world, being contacted by au pairs who say that they really want to live in the country and not in the city...being strung along for days, lots of emails, expensive phone calls (can't get skype to work well and they all give their mobiles as contacts) just to get turned down again and again because they suddenly want to work in central London

So...can anyone recommend an agency? I'm in the Cambridge area.

Please?

Mine's an August start - we don't really need her til the new school year - kids get dropped off by school bus then so I need someone in the house to let them in!
She's staying Aug - end Jan and so I'm looking for Feb onwards now (making the most of my apworld subscription).

494362 - This one has au pair experience, has ticked the 'in the country' box and 'will look after disabled kids' box - with an August start - Any good?
(Oh and she's actively looking cos she just emailed me - but I am sorted now.....probably)

Hi everyone. Millarkie, glad to hear you're sorted. Know what you mean about ap world. Ingles, course I don't mind about recommending Nora. I hope loads of people contact her as a result, and glad to hear your new ap is working out apart from the cleaning. God why is there always something? My dh keeps telling me the perfect ap simply doesn't exist and the sooner I realise that the better for us all!! Bloody man. Well our Hungarian went home on Sunday and d'you know what, I'm loving it that she's no longer around. OK the house looks filthy - 3 dogs and yes we're in the country too - but she was so oppressive that I am hugely relieved to see the back of her. I was going to boot her at the end of June but she announced that she was ill and wanted to go home and her son arranged the flight for last weekend. I've been lucky in a way that the 3 aps I wanted to get rid of have all told me that they wanted to leave, meaning that I can be sweetly understanding instead of a bitch! Baby Cloud is now 6 weeks old tomorrow and is a dream so it's not really much different from just having dd1 and ds to deal with. Just would like a daily cleaner as I find it hard to get time to do anything more than a cursory sweep in the kitchen.
Mrs R can I join your Finn appreciation queue too please?!! Lovely Nora has found us a sweet sounding Austrian for the summer but will be looking from mid-September and also for anyone to help out between now and the end of June. So id anyone knows of an ap who's looking for a stop-gap for the nest couple of months and doesn't mind being very rural let me know .......

cloud - am so pleased that your weight has been lifted. And you are enjoying baby - who cares about the house - you have 3 LOs now. Have you checked out gumtree for a cleaner - its where I found my two. Or how about an agency for a good clean once a month?

Austrian's are meant to be brilliant - I met someone who had had all nationalities but since having an Austrian he never had another nationality. Apparently they do some sort of childcare study at school.

I spoke to my AP and she is going to ask around. She asked to see your profiles on APW that she could link to. If you all want to CAT me with these details, I'll forwad to her. I mentioned Cambridge to her and then we realised that the only cheap airline flying from Finland flew to Stansted - so very convenient.

I am new to this thread but desperate to finds au pair to start as soon as poss. Can any of you help?

Ingles can you please also email me a link to your webpage?

Mrs Recycle did you lady have any friends that were looking? I am in Hertfordshire/borders of North London.

Any other ideas?

I will ask my husband where the link to our AP world page is to send - I have n't even seen the page I am so busy! Not sure I am linked up to CAT - how do I do it?

One dense question - he has only had replies from German girls. Is there any reason for this? Do they have to take time out or something? He has had no replies from any other nationalities.

Thanks

Last of the big spenders - I just worked out what CAT was and have paid up so can CAT anyone direct if that is helpful? Thanks

sorry to hijak this thread but am desparate for some impartial au pair advice, we have never had 1 but with 9 weeksof summer hols looming and my work being erratic hours we thought that maybe a summer nanny would be the answer. i put an ad on gumtree looking for a student type who wanted cash , coudl be flexible with hours and offered what i thought was good perks ( use of car on and off duty, big bed/sitting room, memebrship to private health club ) and no cleaning or evening or weekend work, all the replies from uk girls have demanded huge amount of money and lots of quibbles over hrs ( we have sadi would be about 25-30 hrs per week) but could be more one week but a lot less another. then i had a reply from a polish girl who sounded great and i guess could be classed as an au pair....but have never had one before, how does it all work, do they need visas ? do they have to have set hours,? can you leave them with 2 kids soel charge? and anything else an au pair virgin should know ????

I'm not an expert but I thought that Poland was part of EU and therefore no visa required - for au pair or nannying
Au pairs shouldn't be left with children under 3 - but if they are experienced in childcare you can leave them sole charge of older children (ie. mine will have sole charge of 7 and 5 year old for about an hour and a half after school a couple of times a week - but she worked in a nursery for 18 months)

Au pairs generally get bed/board and £60-90 per week pocket money. Live-in nannies would get paid more but would def. be ok with sole charge and may have qualifications/first aid/crb and be eligible to be registered (so you can pay them by vouchers and save tax). Does your Polish applicant think of herself as an au pair or a live-in nanny?

stressed2007 I don't know if I can help you at all but I'll give it a go if you like. We have an ap who is our first one. She is German and I have had lots of German aps contacting me but I have put British, French and German as my preferred nationalities. Just ask your dh to double check the info you have on your profile in case it has defaulted to German only or something. I can't think why you'd have lots of Germans looking for a May start unless it is the end of one of their terms maybe. I didn't use au pair world but one of the other websites. I don't know if that's any help whatsoever but you can CAT me if you want to and I'd happily chat on the phone if you have any questions you think I'd be able to help you with. There are others on these threads who are far more experienced with aps than me and I won't mind at all if you don't take me up on my offer. P.S. If that doesn't make perfect sense, it's because I'm yawning away here and ds (age 14) isn't home yet so I must stay up!

INF16 - Au-Pairs ... useful to read for information regarding immigration rules for someone to enter the UK under the Au-Pair scheme.

Poland is part of the EEA, so a visa would not usually be required, but they will need to register under the Worker Registration Scheme. For more info see INF18.

Nick is a wealth of knowledge on these things but I'm pretty sure a polish AP is free to come as an AP without any sort of worker registration or visa, but like Romania / Bulgaria (new member states) is not allowed to take any other work.

I think that someone from Poland can take any job they like. Only restriction is that they register under the Worker Registration Scheme. Once they have worked in the UK for 12 months (without a break in employment) then they no longer need to continue with the registration, and can apply for a Residence Permit which will show that they work and live in the UK.
As an employer of someone from Poland - see Employers Information for details of the paperwork you need to keep.

ingles2. Yes, I'm in the country too. 17 miles away from the nearest cinema, why do you recommend avoiding smart au pairs like the plague?

In my experience, au pairs who come via an agency do arrive, then leave for a job in a city soon after.

stressed 2007, I would've thought you'd have no problem finding ap because of your location. We've recently moved from Barnet, where we never had a problem getting aps. Try smart au pairs too. Loads of decent would be aps at the moment.

Not sure why my husband can't find any then. I am too busy to do the search myself but going to ask him to check out whether he has set the profile page up just for German ladies as this is all we are receiving and no one can start til August. Cheapskatemum can you point to any ladies that you think may be good - I am not being lazy it will just mean I can quickly see what is deemed to be a good profile and then point my husband in the right direction as we need some help like yesterday! Thanks.

Stressed - I had proportionately more German applicants than any other nationality - I had restricted my 'wanted' list to western europeans/antipodeans..I thought it might be that they were more likely to apply for rural jobs?

mm....well we are semi urban and we have only had German applicants so earlier poster suggested we may have messed up our profile so going to check about this.

Stressed. remember he has to keep the ctrl button pressed down to make more than one selection (if it is APW). I have just reset my nationalities as was getting too many that needed visa support.

Millarkie, I always think Scandinavians, Canadians and Antipodeans would be ok for rural - my recent Parisian most def not!

THe control button thing doesn't work if he uses a Mac - but I got it to work eventually - I think I pressed the 'option' (apple) button.

Yes, i've been told that Canadians are good for rural..but I've got a German coming (who grew up in a village and says she like village life - we'll see!)