Clueless dad doesn't know what sort or how to get childcare in rural Aberdeenshire pls help...

[DumbDad]

Due to sudden circumstance change I need to get significant child care organised and I am not really sure what sort, or especially how to get this. I have 3 kids in the house aged 7, 12 and 15. I work full time so really need someone for before school and after. It is possible that I could muddle through doing the morning stint and getting someone in to do the afternoon shift, however it leaves me a little exposed workwise.

I have been looking through old threads on this site and I figure my choices are part time nanny(s), full time or live in nanny or AP. I am favouring the part time nanny(s) or AP - I don't need a nanny all day (or maybe at all) however an AP seems to be the economical option, assuming of course they are appropriate for the situation. I am not looking for someone to do heaps of housework, also given the youngest is 7 I figure this is OK for an AP? I would be looking to take full control of the kids at weekends. I have a spare room and a bathroom which is used rarely.

Significant of course is my location - a village approx 30 mins from Aberdeen driving, I figure (which seems to be backed up by previous threads) that my choices may be limited as oppose to in a city.

I am specifically looking for advice on what sort of childcare is felt appropriate, and how to get this - advertise in local papers, which websites are best for nanny care / AP etc, is it best to pay the few hundred quid to an agency to do the AP police checks etc (seems like a good idea to me...?).

All help gratefully received.

An au-pair sounds like your best option and can mostly be childcare related duties with mimimal household chores if thats what you want doing 20-25hrs a week.

Being outside of the city what perks can you provide to entice an AP, do you have a second car that can be for them to use (or could you buy a very cheap old banger for them to use). Would you provide a mobile with X amount of credit on a week, a local lesuire centre membership, a slightly higher than average weekly wage (maybe by £10 a week) - obv wouldnt need to provide all these perks but a few make it attractive.

Obv you need to factor in costs of car insurance as will need to take children to/from school, additional heating costs, water, elec costs.

I guess you need to work out whether the cost of an au-pair is in fact cheaper than a part time nanny, a part time nanny would cost from min wage gross an hr for an inexperienced newly qualified nanny to £10 gross an hr for a very experienced and qualified nanny (dont think you need the latter) would depend on how many hrs you need.

Thing to consider with a nanny is do you need them to be available during day if child is sick or in school holidays if so need to pay full time hours whereas au-pair maybe willing to help out in an emergency if child is sick.

Another type of childcare is just needing after school is a local childcare student obv would need to be 17/18yrs old and drive but would hopefully find someone willing to do a few hrs each afternoon/eve and then more hrs in school hols and poss some weekends plus bit of babysitting if needed and guess you would pay around £3.50-£6 an hr depending on their experience and if you really are in the sticks may need to pay nearer top end of that (contact local colleges to see if anyone interested or pop advert in local shop window) - any student under taking a childcare course with placements would have had a CRB which you need to ensure any childcare has had.

sorry have prob added more confusion to the pot now.

good luck

It sounds to me like you need an after school nanny. Alternatively, you could employ a nanny/housekeeper who would do longer hours but could do washing/shopping/ironing while the children are at school. Try your local gumtree.com or local mumsnet. I'm guessing you would need someone with their own car and they could be live out if it was only for a few hours a day.

HTH

What about during school holidays, what would happen then?
Given your location, is getting snowed in a possibility during winter? Places like Ballater for example can get snowed in at times... that's about an hour outside of Aberdeen, so I guess you aren't that far West though are winter conditions still quite tricky in your area? Live-out help would need to get to you come rain, sun or snow.

I feel you are probably best looking for someone local, someone perhaps from your village. Perhaps a mother whose children have flown the nest... or perhaps someone who has been a nanny or nursery worker in the past but whom now has their own child/children and is looking for some part-time work.

In Scotland I believe that it is nanny agencies that are registered, rather than the nanny themselves... so hiring though an agency may be your only option if you are needing to use Childcare Vouchers. If you don't need to use those, or any other form of financial help, then you can recruit privately but as a parent you can't get a CRB check (Enhanced Disclosure Scotland) done on someone. So contact a local nanny agency to see what options there are... some agencies may offer a screening service of some kind at a lower cost than full recruitment (so, you find the person and the agency runs the Disclosure Scotland check, with you doing all the rest of the background checks yourself).

Given the ages of your children, I feel that someone like this may be better for you, than say a teenager who may only be a couple of years older than your eldest child. How would your eldest take to being cared for by someone only a couple of years older than they are?

Consider very carefully if you want someone to live at your home, or someone who comes to your home each working day. Sharing your home with someone you don't know very well has it's issues (as you will read on here). It can work out but it can be a disaster. As you already have a pre-teen and teenager, do you really want another teenager (or early 20's) living in your home as well? Consider how much privacy you need yourself and your children need. You haven't said why there is this sudden need for childcare or anything about the children's mother... so I will guess that something has happened to mum, thus as a family unit you may be wanting time to yourselves, rather than having to share your house 24/7 with someone you don't know.

You may want to contact OPFS for support. They can provide a childcare service in the child's own home, can't find details on costs seems to be variable depending on the families circumstances. OPFS supports lone parents. Are you now in that position?

Thanks all.

Aha lots of interesting points. As far as the cheaper end of nanny scale / student / local person options goes, this may be ideal but my issue with this was difficulty in finding this locally? Maybe my issue is that I just don't know where to look?

I hadn't tried the local gumtree and mumsnet, shall peruse thanks.

Are these the best places to find all sorts? At the moment even if I had decided exactly what I needed, I feel like I have no idea how to progress the next step.

Using childcare vouchers would be an advantage, if so can anyone recommend the agencies to look at? To be honest I would be happy to pay an agency if they could do the legwork for me, so to speak.

Regarding the AP, yes ideally I don't really want to share the house, however it seemed to tick all the boxes - as pointed out school holidays, sickness, snowed in etc....and I am quite adaptable so I figured I'd make it work somehow. Having said that I could probably muddle through child illness etc, but it just seemed like one thing less to worry about. No problem offering an AP as many of the perks as I could manage.

Life is full of choices.

Without going into the ins and outs of mum, suffice to say she has her issues to deal with, whether or not she returns to the house remains to be seen, however it won't be at least for 6 months, if at all. Long story...

And just to clarify, what exactly is CRB (told you I was clueless)?

Thanks for the OPFS link. I am not divorced so far, but I live in a house with just me and 3 kids and will do for the forseeable future. So I guess, if not officially, I am a lone parent.

CRB stands for "Criminal Records Bureau" commonly known as a "police check". It will identify if a potential applicant has any previous convictions.

Disclosure Scotland is what you need to look at with regard to CRB checks, as you are in Scotland and things there are a little different in various regards to childcare workers. The Enhanced Disclosure checks a persons criminal record, it contains all conviction information, spent and unspent, and any other non conviction information considered to be relevant by the police or other Government bodies. See: Disclosure Scotland - What is a disclosure?

Given your situation, I feel contacting OPFS: childcare@home Aberdeenshire would be a starting point... they may be able to offer you help, or at least tell you about local services, such as nanny agencies. Agencies have to be registered in Scotland, so you can find a list of agencies using Care Commission: Care Services Search. Type of service: Child Care Agency

I would say that an au pair would fit the bill - especially if you can throw in use of a car so they can get out and about a bit. We find our au pairs from aupair-world.net and I check their references myself - some of them provide a police check (and some don't). I would only use an agency if I was in a real hurry to find someone (mainly because I wouldn't trust the agency to do the checks so I might as well do them myself).
We are rural (although can take the train to a couple of major cities within an hour) and so we pay slightly about the odds, and perks such as use of car, petrol, gym membership..and make sure au pair has their own pc (internet access so they can MSN their friends all evening) and a tv in their room so they can escape there in the evenings.
Our au pair was previously an au pair for a family with similar age children to you and relationship-wise she loved it because she really was like a (more responsible) big sister to them (and they still contact her so I guess they were happy too).
If you get a responsible enough au pair then they may be able to cover the odd day of school hols but they should at least be able to drop the younger children at a holiday club and pick them up again (which is our arrangement in school hols).
My tip would be to write down exactly what you would like an au pair to do ie. what the 'on duty' hours would be, plus any jobs on top of 'childwatching', a list of skills they must have ie. driving licence,get the job spec clear in your head and then create a profile on aupair-world. We have found that although most au pairs want to be in the city, there are a few who prefer to be in the countryside (and I've met at least 2 who were desperate to be in the Scottish countryside).
Stick to EU au pairs to avoid having to stress about visas, and use a contract so there is a written list of expectations, sickness and holiday entitlement (minimum paid leave is 28 days including bank hols) and notice period.
Good Luck

Have you tried advertising the position on your local netmums.com childcare board? There's an Aberdeen/NE Scotland part and also a Moray one, a Highland one and you can join upto 5 areas if I recall rightly.

Since you are able to offer a live-in arrangement, I would suggest you explore the whole of the EU as your potential nanny/au pair market. Try sites like greataupair.com and aupairworld (can't remember the address).

How far out are you? Are we talking Westhill or Inverness? I'm sure there are many au pairs and nannies in and around aberdeenshire. I know of one MNer I could point you to. I can't remember the name of the town she lives in but it's about 30 min north of Aberdeen, not too far from Trumps new golf course.

www.ahnannyservices.co.uk

This is a Scottish nanny agency, Caron is very helpful

I have had 2 nanny positions through this agency, and have seen them advertise nanny positions near Aberdeen in the past

Dumbdad - your circumsances are almost identical to mine (3 kids, youngest 6 rural etc). We have an au pair (several now) all found through au pair world as prefer to do it myself as (a) I can't believe the fees agencies charge and (b) some of the advice they hand out is distinctly suspect and out of date.

If you want specifics happy to help drop me a note using contact poster button.

Hi DD.

Speaking as someone else in rural Aberdeenshire (where are you?), we have used every form of childcare going. We have had a nanny (live out) an au pair, a nursery and now use a childminder.

Is childminder not an option for you at all? There are only limited numbers of these in our village, but the one we have at the moment is fab.

We have had a live out nanny when our youngest was a baby. This was fine, apart from the times when the nanny was unable to get to us because of the snow.

We have had two au pairs. The first was wonderful and went into Aberdeen to the college to study English. The second was - sulky. The big problem about being in a rural location is finding friends for the au pair. Our au pairs shared my car, which meant that they were reliant on the less than perfect bus service during the day. They also had to use my car during the evenings if they wanted to go into Aberdeen. While no. 1 was happy to do this, the no. 2 did not - which meant that she had no friends and got unhappier and unhappier.

If your village is anything like my village there are not a lot of things happening for 19 year-olds, so they have to get out and find their own entertainment, and there are unlikely to be many other au pairs in the village. No. 1 made contact with other au pairs through the college and she had quite an active social life - going away to Edinburgh, etc at weekends. It does mean, however, that they move around as a pack and so once every three weekends or so we would have the au pair posse staying at ours for the weekend.

Hope this is helpful - we used Greataupair by the way.

Oh yes, do feel free to CAT me if you want further information.

Thanks again all, much food for thought. I am getting much better armed for this.

Anyone used Thank Evans agency - I note they are only 5 miles from me - I am not far from Inverurie, however the bus service is pretty poor.

One thing was attracting me to AP an putting me off the nanny option was getting the mornings done as well, assuming I could get a nanny to come to my location I would be looking at 2 hours in the morning and approx 4 hours in the afternoon. Unless I change my working arrangement which I may need to do. Is it common to pay travel time?

Regarding child care vouchers, am I correct in assuming you can use them for nannies (only through agencies in Scotland?) but not AP? That might alter the economics a little.

How does one go about finding a childminder? I have tried the aberdeenshire council registered list and there isn't much action here according to that.

I am very keen to learn how folks vet their AP's - DadInsteadofMum thanks for the info offer. Same to Libra, I'll most likely be in touch, when I get out of my santa outfit.....

Yes you are correct a nanny can accept childcare vouchers and au-pair cannot

some nannies will do mornings and afternoons more likely to find a nanny with own child who is willing to do this either with a baby or school aged child or goes to same school as your children or nearby so can drop off - obv this option is slightly cheaper should pay about 25% less per hr gross for nanny with own child.

I guess you could offer a 6mth temp contract to a nanny and then see whats happening with the childrens mother gives you and the children time to adjust and consider what you need whether mum comes back or not and enables you in 4mths time to start to reassess your needs and change childcare arrangements if need be when nanny's contract ends.

Dear CD, something tells me that this might not be the easiest of Christmasses for you and it sounds as if you are trying to handle things as best as you can. So Merry Christmas from a MNer from way down south and all the best for next year to you and your kids!

I have used Thank Evans and got exactly what I wanted/needed. Hooligans Play Barn does wrap around care for school age children so may be worth contacting them for info.

Thanks for the kind words, had a good day although I managed to choke on the turkey...

hi dumbdad, i work as mothers help near forres in the summer and while looking for any ap friends nearby i bumped into aupair agency called aupair ecosse. the lady was very nice and kept sending me contacts of new aupairs in the area. i think she is based around glasgow but also places in the north.
as far as transport is concerned, i find the train really good and travel everywhere on the inverness aberdeen line.
btw i know a german aupair in lossiemouth if you decide to get an ap they might like to get in touch. i have to agree that finding ap friends in rural scotland is not as easy as in, say, london.

All,

thanks again for your replies. Had a bit of an issue getting to the keyboard past all that turkey, just about made it now....

I think I am going to go the AP route, however the question I have is how do you all vet your AP's? Can they get police checks etc from their home country, if foreign?

What checks do you make, apart from the obvious talking to them first and letting the kids speak to them etc? I guess it's more official checks I am wondering about as regards touchy feely issues.

Thanks again.

I've recruited my au pairs using aupair-world.net and found that the more organised au pairs have arranged to have a police check carried out and will email a pdf. I always check references by phone (but admittedly for this reason I chose German language countries since my brother-in-law lives abroad and is fluent so I get him to ring ).
If you use an agency I guess that they would arrange police checks. I am probably too trusting and believe that the vast majority of people are honest, and those that are off the rails at 20 are less likely to be trying to improve their language skills by taking the huge leap of moving abroad.
I send out an interview questionaire by email asking questions about their experience, driving ability, what they like to eat, what their hobbies are and then follow up emails generally chatting and getting a feel for their character. We have had 2 excellent au pairs and 1 who was more difficult to live with.

Millarkie, many thanks for your response, don't suppose you could share one of those questionnaires???

Fair point about 20 yr olds moving abroad, I would agree they most likely have good intentions.

Only one way to get a good feel for them though I guess.....