Considering an Au Pair - advice needed!!

[starangel]

Please help! I'm returning to work as a teacher in September and am considering having an au pair to help us. My only real reservation is that the pocket money seems like a really low 'wage' - which is of course, appealing to us but I would hate to exploit someone. DH and I will both work in the same school. We live in a nice four bedroomed house 2 mins walk from the school. The Au Pair could have a double bedroom with en suite shower room, TV, wireless internet, use of the car during the term time etc. DH and I are both Secondary English teachers and I have the CELTA qualification (Eng Lang teaching to adults). We have two boys, aged 3 and 5. I would need an Au Pair to be available to drive the boys to school and collect them most days. The 3 year old could just do mornings or full days at nursery. We would need some after school care, some Saturday mornings and some evening baby sitting for parents' evenings etc. During the school holidays the Au Pair would be totally free and we would be happy to continue to pay her. It would be useful if she could help out with a bit of housework. We're a very relaxed, happy family living in a rural setting, close to London. Any advice? Does this kind of thing sound reasonable? Feels like a step into the unknown. I'd love to support a young adult within our family setting.

Starangel- we have had our first au pair last September and I have to admit that it has been great! Au pair means 'at par' in French , so the person will be staying in your house as a member of your family.The 'pocket money' you give her will be like paying your own teenage daughter- in return for the living/boarding/opportunity to learn English from real professional, she will be ferrying your children to and from school- you need not feel guilty about it as long as you don't demand too much of their own time to get other things done such as extra housework/babysitting out of hours, etc without pay!
There is this excellent website www.aupairworld.com- you can register for about 30 quid and directly get someone without having to pay huge sums to agnecies

Thank you Full Time! I feel really enthusiastic about welcoming someone as a member of the family. We're very used to working with teenagers and respect and enjoy their company. It could be a perfect solution. I'm most concerned at this stage about us being right for them rather than the other way round. My other concern is friends for the au pair. Do you have any experience of helping an au pair begin a social life?

I think the main problem you'll have is that you're rural, and you need a driver. Rural will only appeal to a limited number of au pairs, and you'll need someone with a driving licence - consider the expense of insuring them, will you need at older au pair?

Generally the au pair package tends to be 25 hours childcare and light housework, up to 2 nights babysitting, for around £70 a week. The Saturday work might put people off, but if you stress the long paid holidays it should counterbalance it! Be aware you will be an employer though, and will need to have a contract.

We are semi-rural, and our au pair has managed to find a good few other young girls who are au pairs and they all regularly meet up-I agree with Missus84 that driving insurance will cost an arm and a leg - something I had not foreseen- I let our au pair use the car for her needs too- as there are really very few buses in our area- generally it works well if they know what you expect of them and you make it clear right at the outset. The contract is not that difficult- there is an official version in the government website which you can copy. We have generally managed to find a great deal of interest in au pairing in Britain- we have just appointed our next au pair- so you may have plenty of applicants in rural areas too

Mmmmmmmm, yes, I would need to look into the car insurance!

? Official government contract for au pairs?

Link please as that would be v useful!

A contract isn't scary at all and you'll find plenty if good advice on here about contracts and handbooks as well as the whole recruitment process.

There are various groups on facebook for au pairs and other websites. Depending on how rural you are there may be other local au pairs. If not, depending on the age of the au pair, maybe you have contacts through school for ex pupils or those with older siblings, a local youth group or similar? My mothers last au pair joined the local ranger unit!

Thanks frakkin around. We're not hugely rural, five minute drive from a nice small town and about 10 mins drive from the station where trains to London run very regularly and take between 13 and 25 mins to the tube/ central London. There is a bus service to both the station and the small town. I'd happily let the person use the car as long as I can find insurance. I've rather avoided Face Book but maybe now's the time to explore it! It would certainly be a good idea for the au pair. Thinking about it, I'm sure we'd be able to find some friends/youth group etc.

Whilst the pocket money seems low, remember you are feeding them etc. I find my food bills are quite a bit higher just because it is another adult in the house. Also electric, gas and water bills are higher. Partly due to things like if they want a particular top on they will run the washing machine for just two items, but this is just because they are young.
We have had several au pairs and all have been lovely girls. My au pairs have made friends through college and the contact lists our agency provide of other au pairs in the area.

I'll second what LizCat said, the pocket money is about half of the cost in my experience, car insurance, petrol, food, power and water use plus the extra person on trips out all add up. The actual figures depend on the au pair, I barely notice the extra food costs/power costs etc with current au pair but we have had an au pair who doubled our food bill and doubled the water usage (we are on a meter) and quadrupled our heating oil bill.
Working Saturdays is quite unusual - most au pairs use the weekend to meet up with friends or travel to other cities for sightseeing.
We are rural and pay £85 for less than 20 hours each week - the pocket money is generally higher in rural regions than cities.

Don't worry about Saturday working - while it is not usual, there will be candidates who will be willing to do this as long as you are clear about things up front. This was common for us before when the children were younger.

I notice you say they would have use of the car during term time.. Does this imply during the school holidays they won't? If this is the case it might be a contentious issue.

Car insurance isn't a problem if you go for an older candidate. Our au pairs have tended to be 25+ and the extra insurance works out at about £5 a month if it is just use of your car. If they have their own car then you'll obviously have to get them their own policy which will be more.

Always find out how long an au pair is willing to commit to. If they can't commit to a long term period then don't consider them from the beginning. Many candidates are happy to come for a few months but don't have the intention to stay for longer.

I recommend using a good agency that provide ongoing support and back up. If you have specific requirements then get the agency to check these before you begin to talk to them.

If you are in a rural setting then I'd look for candidates who have grown up in a similar setting and aren't used to having everything on their doorstep.. though by the sound of things they can be in town within half an hour so not too bad. An older candidate will rpobably be happier to have a more relaxed life style away from the bright lights.

I would think twice about her having complete free time during the school holidays. In my experience au pairs like to be busy, in theory it might sound nice to you to have all that free time but unless she has friends/things to do etc she might end up getting bored/lonely/homesick.

The going rate for pocket money is around £70 per week - it might seem low to you but don't forget her board, meals and bills are all paid for so it really is just pocket money.

We have had au pairs for a while and most of them have been brilliant. They are used to doing housework, that is part of the arrangement and my children have loved the girls we have had. Don't worry if their English isn't great to start with - it improves very quickly.

Thanks so much everyone, you've given really valuable, generous advice. I'll take it all on board and let you know how we get on!

Why don't you reduce hours over school holidays and use the time to do 1-1 activities with the children or go to the gym? then again many aupairs would love this job and a chance to travel/chill out over holidays

Car insurance is the killer! Ours went up by £500 our AP's were 19 cant seem to find anyone older than that.

Yes, good idea Should Be. As you imply,they wouldn't have to do nothing - it's just an option!

New Teacher, this car insurance thing will require some consideration. I'll have to make sure we take it into account as a real expense if we do go down this au pair route.

I'm not sure what the law is about car insurance but it is almost always worth having the au pair added as a named driver rather than getting them their own policy. The problem with that though is that any accident will have an impact on our own insurance costs in future years so you can't win. By having older candidates though they are statistically less likely to have accidents and will be much cheaper on the insurance anway. There seems to be plenty of older drivers available so you shouldn't have too many problems.

Treesa most people do that BUT you have to be careful as its ILLEGAL especially if the AP is the main driver....

Driving AP's are the hardest ones to get as there are so few of them!

I always go for girls from Germany as there driving tests are so hard and they tend to be better drivers. We had a Czek girl and even the driving instrutor told me she wouldnt trust her to drive on her own!

I always have the AP as main driver, if theinsurance company decides they are main driver and you have them down as a secondary driver, the insurance company can refuse to pay out in the event of an accident on the basis that you lied on your application.

There are plenty of AP drivers over 21 out there, we never seem to have any trouble getting applicants and we are also rural so driving is essential.

And I don't think you can rely on national stereotypes, our one German AP so far was easily the worst/maddest/reckless driver of the lot.