au pair doesn't want us to talk to her current family - what to do

[MizZan]

We have just met a very nice au pair who is looking to switch families at the end of next month. She has been with her current family (in a town near ours) since September. The mom has been ill (but is recovering) and the kids sound like they've been quite challenging, and I think it just sounds like it's all gotten to be too much for her, along with the fact that she'd prefer to be based in our town because of having friends here.

Here's the catch - the family do not know yet that she wants to leave, and she doesn't want me to call them to check references, or not right away anyway, as she is afraid they will be upset with her and she's uncomfortable telling them she's leaving and then asking for a reference in the same breath. She has provided other references (from her home country, but not at all childcare related) and is studying English at a school near us so I suppose I could ring them and just confirm that she is a regular attendee there etc.

Am I being stupid here? For our current au pair, she had no previous AP experience so we only checked references with past teachers etc. - and it's worked out absolutely fine. And it's not like this girl is leaving the family abruptly in the lurch, which would definitely give me pause.

anyone been there/done that? suggestions?

It might be awfully underhand but could you ring and check a reference as if you wanted her to babysit one evening for you and wanted to just have a chat about her with current family? You can probably get a lot from just a 5 minute phone conversation and ask some basic but important questions. Of course that's not going to be much help if you want to know about her ironing skills....but childcarewise it might. Having said that my current boss had a ridiculous detailed conversation with a potential babysitting family the other day - they wanted to know about cooking and everything. My boss told them that if I was doing babysitting on a Saturday evening I probably wasn't going to be doing half the stuff they were asking about. I changed my mind about sitting for them after that (visions of turning up and being presented with 3 hyper children and a list of chores while the parents swanned off sprange to mind).

Do, of course, offer her an evening's babysitting if it salves your conscience doing it that way!

its very personal thing,some girls click with some families and not others. Think about it,sharing your house is hard work,you may have 20 great friends but how many of them could you share a home with and not want to strangle after a few days
Have had aupairs we got on great with and aupairs we were happy to leave us,one families GEM can be another families Horror, so a reference from the family even a great one doesnt mean she will be great for you,of course it will tell you if she is a thief or tantrum thrower,but if they say she is sullen and stroppy it may be her response to her treatment by them.

Gosh i hope i make sense

OK - update and (hopefully) happy ending. Potential AP had a trial morning with our kids and current AP and all went well, had her back in for another chat to say "what can we do about this question of references" and she agreed I could talk to current family after she (a) tells them she is leaving, and (b) actually does leave - she's going home for a few weeks between leaving them and joining us. She also provided a couple of other references, personal ones but still, at least something. And, her mom was visiting and she brought her by our house, and the mom was very nice too, so I take all that as a very good sign and am now just waiting a few weeks to check things out with current family, but generally it seems like a go. As far as whether she will "click" with our family, I certainly have a better sense of that than I would with someone I've never laid eyes on (which is what our alternative would be), though I know there are no guarantees with this. Our main interest is whether she will be interactive and responsible with the children, and be pleasant to live with (cleaning and cooking are great skills but have to take a backseat, I've found, unless you get lucky - we are just grateful to have someone run laundry through the washer on a regular basis and get the kids breakfast and dinner a few times a week). Thanks all for the advice.