Should I give my ex-AP a reference?

[Badpups]

My ex-AP who left in July has just contacted us and asked for another reference as the family she gave the previous one to has lost it and she didn't keep a copy. She has asked me to email her one. I guess that she is now looking for another AP position.

The problem is that we had to ask her to leave (for various reasons) and since she left we have found even more reasons why we are glad that we made that decision.

On the original reference I wrote the dates that she was with us, her basic duties and said that she was honest, trustworthy and competent - which I believed at the time.

The problem is that I no longer feel that I can describe her as "honest and trustworthy" which would just leave the reference as giving the dates that she was with us and her duties. Any future family would be bound to read between the lines and then contact me and I would feel that I had to answer their questions.

Knowing how future families would rely on the reference I don't feel that I can really give her one.

What does anybody think? Please help!

I think you are obliged to give her one as her former employer, yu can't give a negative reference but you can give a very neutral one.

There has been a thread on references. I'll see if I can find it and link to it.

Just give her one that is truthful and to the point. If the family wishes to contact you for more information then you can be honest about her. Don't lie for her though. Write the dates, whether she was on time and basic duties. They can make their own assumptions. I would never let anyone look after my son without checking the references aswell, I would want to speak to the person that wrote it.

this one has some tips I think

If you email her a reference ensure you have made it a PDF file so that none of the details on it can be changed.

Thanks so much for your quick responses. Simply - thanks for the link, I hadn't seen that thread before and it is very useful.

I think that I'll just do a very basic reference giving the dates she was with us and her duties. Anything else would be subjective so I'll leave future families to make up their own minds and contact me if they want more information.

The family that she joined after she left us didn't contact me so I imagine that she gave them a sob-story about how awful we were!

I'll definitely send it as a pdf or jpg so that she can't easily alter it.

That was my previous thread and I'm really pleased it's helped someone else too. A prospective family did contact me, by phone. I was able to vouch for the dates he worked and that he was a competent driver (we'd paid for 3 lessons). It was when she asked about cooking that the evidence became less than compelling - he'd practically burnt our kitchen down by attempting to grill chips in 2cm of oil. He wasn't offered the job and went back to Slovakia, intending to return to UK this autumn and work as something other than an AP. I think even he worked out that he wasn't really cut out for it!

Hope all goes well for you, sorry to hear of your bad experience.

I always ask past employers, "would you employ x again?" Then wait for a reply. Depending on the person, I would even ask "why?"

I did this with regard to one potential nanny who was given a rather negative reference. I did phone up the former employer, and quite frankly, I understood why the nanny left the family. I too, would not have got on with the past employer of the nanny! Unfortunately, my potential nanny was poached by a friend. [annoyed rather than angry emotion]