Finding someone who has the experience to look after your child is no easy task. You can’t simply leave your little ones with someone who doesn’t have the right qualifications, and who doesn’t have much in the way of past experience, no matter how much you like them! You have to choose someone whom you trust, someone who has the right background, and someone with the right qualities, e.g. mature, fun, creative, a good planner, someone who is good in a crisis, etc.
For that reason, it’s vital that you go down the right route wen trying to find a live in nanny. This person is going to be living in your home, looking after your children, perhaps going away on trips with you – this person needs to be the right one for the job.
Of course, these types of jobs have their perks for the nanny too. They get their accommodation paid for, perhaps their meals, they get to travel and gain life and home experience whilst doing their work. Overall, it’s a plus on both sides to find the right person.
So, how do you go about finding the right one for this very special and involved job?
Register With an Agency
The single best way to find a top quality live in nanny is to go through an agency. This means that you can rest assured that the person has the right qualifications and has been vetted by the agency, rather than you going into the depths of the Internet and trying to find someone on your own steam. For instance, if you’re looking for a live in nanny in Dubai, you would register with a UAE specific agency, or you could register with a worldwide agency, if you wanted someone who could teach your child different languages, perhaps.
Be Clear on Your Own Requirements
What do you want the nanny to do? Are there any other tasks that you want to add to the job description? For instance, do you expect them to do any cleaning? What about cooking tasks? Are they going to go away on family trips with you? Will there be the odd night shift that you would want them to cover, when perhaps you and your partner go out? Have everything thought out beforehand, so that you can communicate your needs clearly to the prospective nannies. This also means that there will be no crossed wires further down the line.
You also need to think about the space they are going to live in. Are they going to have their own section of the house? Are they going to have a room and share the rest of your home with you? What about laundry? Are you going to supply their meals? What exactly are their working hours going to be, and what is the salary?
Check their Qualifications, Experience, and References Carefully
The agency will do their own vetting procedure, but you need to go over this to satisfy your own curiosity and needs. Does the nanny you are looking at hiring have the right level of qualifications for the age of your child? What amount of experience do they have? Does your child have any special requirements that means extra care is needed, and if so, do they have the right level of expertise for this?
Every prospective nanny should have a reference from any previous family the worked for. You need to see this, and you need to be able to ask any questions of the family if you’re not sure of something you want to query. The person, or persons, you decide to interview need to be the ones that you are sure of, and the ones that you do not have any doubts about at all. This is your child we are talking about after all.
Think about Enhanced CRB Checks
The agency will probably do a CRB check, but this isn’t always the case, and you need to do another one for yourself, to satisfy your own mind. This is a check of the person’s criminal record, and in terms of working with children, this will need to be an enhanced check, which looks deeper into their history. Of course, the hopes are that it will come up clear, and you will find someone you feel confident in, and someone you totally trust, but this is a background check that is vital.
The Interview Process
Of course, you need to meet the prospective person and you need to sit down and have a real chat with them. This can be a formal interview, but it should also be a little more informal too. You are going to be living with this person, they are going to be sharing your home and your space, so you need to be able to get on with them on a personal level, as well as on a professional level too.
Do you introduce your child to the person early on in the process or not? This is a personal choice, but many parents prefer to wait until they have find the right person for the job, before allowing their child to meet them.
Finding a live in nanny isn’t an easy and quick process, but it is one which will reap rewards if you take the time to go through the process thoroughly and properly. Cutting corners will end in one of two ways – either a problem with your child, which you don’t want, or a problem with you and the nanny – again, something to avoid!
