shall i get an au pair ....

[mummydoc]

i have had a myriad of childcare arrangement sin my time, but never had an au pair, but sudden rush of work ( awhich we need the money from) has left me working everyday except sund plus thurs evenings , now both children at school 7.30 until 16.45 , we have tried putting an ad on gumtree for a nanny/girl friday type to do about 10 hrs a week during term time and more during school hols but no replies. i am now wondering if i can face an au pair for the next 4 months - is it a hassle to employ one ? what do i need to know - i have looked at au pair world - the other thing is we are in the depths of the country and i worry about them being lonely.

Are there buses? The agency we used says that a placement is probably not suitable if the au pair can't get into the nearest town independently, either by public transport or if they have access to a car.
We found it quite straightforward to find ours - we went through agencies so it cost us £400 agency fee but it meant they did all the reference checking etc and gave us a lot of advice on how to make it work, and made sure that the AP knew what she was getting herself into as well.
For only 4 months I can see you not wanting to end up with a big agency fee though - but doing it yourself will be more work and hassle.

Au pair sounds ideal in your situation. Have you tried greataupair.com? Or even a summer job type ad on nannyjob.co.uk -- but you might have to offer a few more hours and matching £ but still shouldn't cost you loads.

Live in small village with inadequate public transport, I have no problem recruiting but do offer use of a car to give access to the nearest town; during the recruitment process (see below) I give them as much information as possible about where we live what facilities are int he village, and more importantly what facilities are not in the village.

Is it difficult to "employ" - do you mean recruit or having them around.

I do the recruitment myself (I use APW), as I think £400 is a bit steep and being paranoid I would want to interview and check references myself anyway. Using APW is a numbers game, but if you just want somebody for the summer you will have your pick as there are a lot of students looking for summer work, however develop a thick skin as you will also get a lot of rejections and some strange responses when you oh so gently reject applicants ("well yours is a horrible family and I didn't want to work for you anyway"!).

If you mean having an AP around well you are going to have an extra adult in the house which can take some getting used to. I have been very lucky and have had APs who want to be part of the family and join us for activities and trips even on off days and have generally be a pleasure to have around.

Expect hiccoughs and bumps along the way but as long as they are addressed early and you have somebody who is prepared to act like a reasonable adult (not always the case - see other threads) then with luck you end up in my situation whereby I couldn't cope without AP.