au pairs - doctor's/police certificate etc

[neva]

Hi

If one has found an au pair via a website such as Au Pair World, is it normal to ask for a doctor's certificate of good health, and/or a criminal record check?

Have found a lovely sounding Danish girl. She's supplied an excellent employer's reference, so no reason at all to think there would be any problem. I don't want to put her off by being too fussy.

What do others do?

Thanks!

We haven't asked for either although some of our au pairs have got police checks and send copies to us.
We do ring the referee though and check sick leave and general honesty, reliability etc.

Most Europeans can provided a clean police record certificate reasonably easily (don't know about Denmark) like Mill never asked for it but some have sent it anyway, never asked or received a drs cert.

Have you followed up the reference? I always do, I insist on a work (rather than hotmail/gmail) email address as my language skills are not good enough for a phone call and I think it is a bit much to expect everybody to speak English (though in Denmark yuou are proabably safe).

I always check on whether the reference is genuine, have they actually seen the AP with kids or is their reference based on "character", and picking up on any specific points in the refernces that may be of interest.

Thanks v much.