What checks and contracts are usual for private babysitting after nursery?

[BBU]

Our DS has just started nursery full time and we are considering asking one of the ladies at nursery (that work part time / don’t do afternoon shifts) if they could help us with babysitting him for a couple of hours 2-3 days a week after nursery - essentially just taking him home down the road and giving him dinner so we’re not always rushing back from work and so he won’t be one of the last ones waiting at nursery. They may also do some ad hoc babysitting for us during weekends.

The nursery is helping us talk to their staff to see who’s free / interested but we will be paying them privately and not through the nursery. For these types of arrangements, what is “normal” in terms of background checks we need to complete and contracts we need to sign etc?

We assume nursery has done all the background checks but should we still ask her for a copy of her DBS certificate? Do we need any other documents? Is there a contract you’d usually sign for these arrangements?

First time parents and everyone else we asked has a nanny which I understand may be a different process where you’re their employer?

Many thanks in advance!

Our nursery says babysitting is fine but they take zero responsibility for it and won’t arrange it so it’s private between you and the staff member.

You can’t really just get a copy of a dbs - it goes to the staff member and it’s theirs to keep - but they can show it to you I guess! Or these days they might be on the update service so you could ask for certificate number and check that - but tbh I wouldn’t bother as if she works at the nursery they will have done this already!

I'd just pay in cash for babysitting and wouldn't do any 'checks'.

If you are regularly paying the same someone in Your house to look after your child, I don’t see how they aren’t a part time nanny.

I would assume the only thing nursery is doing is a quick email or WhatsApp to employees asking if anyone is interested in babysitting for little Sam and if so, they will pass on contact details:

Yes that’s the same for us. I assumed we didn’t need to do “checks” as nursery would have done it but didn’t want to miss anything “normal” that everyone else was doing.

It may well be - we’re not sure tbh and I guess we’ll ask them how they want it done. The nursery manager called it “babysitting” when I described to her what we were after so we just took that!

Yes exactly! Hence we were wondering what we needed to do once they found someone…

If it’s at your home she’s a babysitter. If it’s at her home then she’s a childminder and needs to be registered as such.

Thank you! She’ll be at our home so not a childminder! I’m not quite sure what the distinction between “nanny” and “babysitter” is though …

There isn’t really a legal distinction in terms of documents needed. However many career Nannie’s will choose to register with Ofsted under a nanny registration, meaning they do first aid and safeguarding qualifications, have dbs and get checked occasionally. Many career nannies who are not Ofsted registered still go and do paediatric first aid training and other training. Some full time Nannies are employees of families, so have a contract and have the right to holidays etc. Some nannies, afterschool in particular work through agencies like Koru. The term babysitter usually means they are just doing it for extra bit of cash on the side and might not have any child related qualifications. They are less likely to offer permanent/fixed hours every week and less likely to have a contract. If I were you I’d want to have someone with a dbs and paediatric first aid as a minimum.