This is a guest post by Leah Enters, of Au Pair Care. While I, personally, have not worked with this particular organization, I have used au pairs for childcare in the past. When my kids were younger, it was a great solution and I highly recommend it.
And now…..(drum roll please)…..here is our guest post!
The Au Pair Option…Is it the Right Choice for You?
Are you looking for reliable, flexible and affordable child care? According to Child Care Aware of America, the nation’s leading voice for child care, states, “Nearly 11 million children under age 5 are in some type of child care setting every week. On average, the children of working mothers spend 36 hours a week in such care.
About one-third of these children are in multiple child care arrangements. Parents have a hard time finding child care, a harder time affording it, and too often it is of dubious quality.” Consider hosting an au pair. An au pair is a young adult from another country who lives with your family for a year and provides in-home childcare (like a nanny, but better)! Au pairs work up to 45 hours per week, in exchange for the opportunity to live with an American family.
Au pairs provide live-in childcare, offering greater flexibility and are able to care for your children at times that accommodate your family’s individual schedule. Au pairs can fulfill a variety of roles that help your family thrive and grow. Hosting an au pair from a foreign country is surprisingly economical. On average, AuPairCare offers the cost at about $350 per week for a full-time, live-in au pair, no matter the number of children. An au pair working a 45-hour week will cost you about $8 per hour.
There are many benefits to hosting an au pair. Au pairs provide families with flexibility. Many au pairs work different schedules every week depending on the needs of the host family but of course with a week’s notice. Au pairs may even travel with the family and often view this as a plus. Oftentimes, hosting an au pair may lead to a lifelong bond between the family and au pair. The au pair becomes like a member of the family, developing deep, personal relationships with the children, parents, and their extended family.
Au pairs also provide parents with a unique experience by educating their children regarding their culture, due to daily exposure to a second language and the traditions of their country. On the other hand, au pairs also experience America, learning about our food, history and our culture. AuPairCare offers au pairs from over 40 different countries, including Germany, France, Japan, Sweden, Brazil, Africa, China and others. An au pair from AuPairCare received the Au Pair of the Year Award in 2015.
We pre-screen all au pairs and they attend AuPairCare Academy upon arrival into the US. This training covers child safety including first aid and CPR, child development games and activities, driving safety in the USA, child safety techniques, American way of caregiving, and strategies for providing care for more than one child at a time. Additionally, we offer extended training for au pairs whose host families desire them to specialize in caregiving for children under 2 years old. AuPairCare provides matching experts to families interested in hosting an au pair.
Matching experts will assist families with developing good interview questions and are available throughout the matching process. Local Area Directors provide support for both the family and au pair, organize and attend monthly events for au pairs, and host an International Family Day for host families and their au pairs. For families considering an au pair, it takes four to six weeks for au pairs to arrive after a match is made.
If you are interested in hosting an au pair or want to learn more about the program, please contact Leah Enters at 972-955-8937, email Lenters@aupaircare.com, and visit http://www.aupaircare.com.
SingleSideUp! 