Would you mind if I posed a few questions

[nannyme]

...about a new aspect of my business that I am working on.

Really need to up the income as supernannying isn't as lucrative as I'd have liked.

It's about nannies...

Thought I'd check first.

Yeah go on, I'm nosy .

Okay, thanks. I plan to market a nanny mediation service.

It kind of makes sense as it came about after a piece of behavioural work I did with a family who had a nanny and then wanted me to work with the nanny for a second session.

All went very well and I would like to offer this service more widely.

First of all does this sound pants?

Secondly, I know agencies offer to mediate if there is a problem with a successful candidate for job and will also replace a nanny that is deemed unsuitable but I get the impression that in practice this isn't that supportive and agencies rarely get very hands-on in this department.

Would you agree with that?

Would you be happy having a nanny mediator come and work with you/your family if there were any problems, bearing in mind that although hired by the family the help would be 'neutral'?

No.
If I was even the weeniest bit unhappy with someone,they wouldn't spend another minute with my children.

moondog what if they were great with the kids but they went out on the lash sometimes and came home late (if live-in) or were late in the morning quite often (if live-out)?

No go for me.
If I couldn't trust them,why would I employ them to look after my most precious possessions?

Thanks.

Off for some food now but if anybody else could give their opinion it would really help me a lot.

TIA

I think this will end up being too niche to make any significant income IMHO.

If you're an expert nanny seeking to derive extra income for your expertise I'd be offering a nanny vetting / approval / location type service to parents. I imagine you'd emphasise the ability to extract the parents' needs out of them and get them down on paper for a great ad, then your ability to sift through responses at lightning speed rooting out the crap ones / psycho ones / liars, then you'd use your insight and years of practical experience to put candidates through a useful interview / scenario challenge IYSWIM, then you'd draft up / negotiate contracts which fairly protect both parties, and then you'd retire to the Bahamas.

I think there'd be LOADS of demand for a similar service at a fixed fee.

You'd be a go-between broking the relationship between parent and agency / nanny web site IYSWIM. Also you could seek to develop your 'approval' regime into an 'approved by' branding type system where a parent seeking a nanny knew that if a nanny had been 'nannymed' TM she knows the difference between au-pair and nanny, agrees to work around an approx standard rate, expects a certain quality of (mutually fair) contract, has certain expectations ('rules' if you like) regarding the nights on the lash, boyfriend shagging, late arrival for work, husband seduction, washing machine loading etc. etc.

hth

I'm with moondog on this one. ANY teeny tiny bit of doubt and its a nono

Agree with moondog and hub (although I'd like to clarify exactly what his expectations are on husband seduction before signing up to them 100% )

yup, sorry.
not interested in mediating with a nanny - if it has got to that stage she is out.

there are HUNDREDS of great nannies out there, I don't need to waste time and money trying to retrain a flawed one. sorry!

no go for me either - i'll leave my kids with anyone

ha ha custy

I disagree

I have had my nanny for 4 years she is part of our lives and dd loves her like a grandmother. I would hate for some silly thing to get in the way of that great relationship.

However I think I would be capable of resolving any differences myself!

If it were a short term nanny then as others have said not worth worrying about.

but that is my point cd. any issues you can deal with yourself - if you get to the stage where you can't, and have to go to external mediation - well I just wouldn't get there. the relationship would have broken down sufficiently for me to try someone new

yes good point your knickerness

OK I'm with the bird with the grubby thong on her head on this one

whoops better change back

vom at "grubby thong"

Nice hat. It looks like you've got a parting at the back.

If I had a problem with a nanny I'd either sort it out myself or end the arrangement, I'd be too embarrassed to suggest she needed retraining. Have I got that right? Not quite sure what circs mediation would be needed and by the time it was arranged you would have had days or weeks of not looking each other in the eye.

Thanks, I think!

No, really, this has helped me review my plans so great!

Hub2Dee thanks for spending the time on that reply of yours - I think you could be right and maybe I could mould my idea a little.

Fortunately this is going to run alongside the regular behaviour management and sleep training stuff as it is kind of complimentary.So, if there isn't a lot of interest I won't have lost anything much because the original web site is already there iyswim.

Thanks again all!

I'd rather keep blaming a succession of nannies for my kids' problems than face up to the idea I might be partly to blame and risk having it spelled out to me in a mediation setting . I think that's kind of human nature isn't it? Maybe admit it when they're 16 and undeniably f*ed up LOL?
(I don't have a nanny btw, I just think it takes a rare amount of maturity to use a mediation service.)

No worries.

One way to take your 'mediation' idea, but give it a twist, is to offer a kind of 'trouble shooting' service without calling it mediation IYSWIM. ie. target clients who pay their nanny in different ways but want it all sorted with PAYG etc. or who just have an 'ad hoc' arrangement, but want a contract drawn, or who've never really set 'ground rules' and would like a 'standard agreement' wrt boyfriend shagging or hours or use of the phone or whatever IYSWIM... this kind of puts a much more positive spin on esentially the same thing without the conotations of drawn out, messy, confrontational 'mediation'.