Au Pair Or Au Pair/Tutor?

We recommend focusing on family interviews and choosing your location based on the host family that you really “connect with.” Let the family connection guide your decision on where you will live.

Before you depart, we connect you via email, phone, and Skype with your new host family. You’ll have all the details you want before you ever leave home.  GeoVisions spends a great deal of time on match-making. It is the only way the program will be successful. There needs to be a “connection” between you and your host family.

But after you arrive if you’re having issues, we have a way to start the process to fix things or, change your placement, if necessary. This is extremely rare, but we’ve done this long enough to know things can come up on all sides.

Unfortunately, host families needing an au pair only have one au pair in the home at a time.  So we are unable to provide a homestay for anyone except one au pair per household. If you want to apply with someone else, they would be placed with another family. We would try hard to find a host family so you would be close to one another, but we could not guarantee that. We are successful most of the time.

Some of our au pairs tell us the bond they form with their host family can last a lifetime.  We know some au pairs who actually fly back a few years later for a reunion or to attend a milestone event for one of the children they cared for.

You will participate in family activities, share cultures, and make friends in your new community and with other au pairs in the area.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL

You can find sites on the Internet that will encourage you to find a family for free. Some of those sites boast 2 Million registrations. How can any company screen 2 million families?  Please think twice before you agree to travel thousands of miles from your family and friends and move in with a host family who are advertising that they want a young woman or a young man to move in with them. They remind us of dating sites.

If things go wrong and your host family violates your agreement with them, resolving the problems will be all up to you. And today you may not be concerned. That’s fine. But just know that any family that ducks under the radar and doesn’t want to be screened, that regularly goes beyond the terms of your contract, making you work too much, too often, on the wrong kinds of tasks will likely keep on doing it unless there is someone right there to step in and help you. Or get you out of that situation quickly and safely.

In the USA and in The Netherlands, au pairs are required to use an approved au pair agency. This government requirement is all about protecting you.

Want some real down to earth ideas? The website, AuPairMom.com is a great source. At that site they “get about one email a week from an au pair in Europe or Australia who is working without the support of an agency. She is usually being expected to work far too much, has limited to no use of a car, can’t leave the host family’s house, and/or is having her pocket money withheld for problems she does not think she caused.”

With GeoVisions, every family is screened carefully and visited in person. Many of these families have hosted au pairs before. We brag that we have a few hundred host families not millions. It’s a number we can screen and stay connected to. It’s not about the money. It’s about your safety.

Becoming an au pair is a serious position … and while you do get paid to travel … your main responsibilities are the children you care for.  While you might consider yourself patient, fun-loving and perfect for a job like this … think about how responsible you are and your previous experience with children under your care.  If you’re ready … we have incredible families who need you right away, living in amazing locations.  It's an amazing cultural exchange!