• Au pairs are aged between 18-27 and their chief purpose for being in the country is to learn the language and assimilate the culture.
• An au pair lives with you and should be treated as part of the family. Au pairs earn board and lodging and a small amount of money each week in return for childcare and light housework.
• Many people tend to lump nannies and au pairs into the same category but they are totally different. Au pairs are NOT nanny-substitutes, and usually have no formal childcare training. R.E.C (Recruitment and Employment Confederation) stipulates that au pairs should never have sole charge of children under the age of three.
• Au pairs are often seen as the 'Cinderellas' of the childcare industry. Agencies are often faced with problems of au pairs being treated as cheap labour by people who should be employing qualified nannies. Frequently they are left alone with young children for long hours and given heavy housework duties far in excess of what they should be asked to do.
• An au pair should have their own bedroom and be allowed proper time to study English.

Duties:
Assist with light housework, help in the kitchen and care for school age children. They should also be available for babysitting one or two evenings per week.

Qualifications:
Au pairs have no formal training in caring for children and may have little or no experience.

Legal Requirements and Visas:
An au pair is a national from one of the following countries:
Andorra, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bulgaria, Croatia, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Macedonia, Monaco. Romania, San Marino, Turkey.
Nationals of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Turkey must get a visa before they travel to the UK.

Nationals of commonwealth countries [eg Australians] can work under the Holidaymaker Scheme. This scheme allows them to work for up to one year out of the two year total travelling time away from home.

EC Nationals are not included in the au pair scheme but are free to work in the UK as au pairs.

Cost:
Au pairs are paid approximately £55-60 per week. Some agencies offer an 'au pair plus' system whereby workers are paid more to work longer hours. However, this is a questionable practice which is not in strict accordance with Home Office rules (see below).

Hours:
According to Home Office rules on the employment of au pairs (visit www.homeoffice.gov.uk) they should work for 25 hours per week and have two days off per week. Au pairs tend to stay for six months and this usually means the employer does not give them a paid holiday - the rationale being that the au pair only worked part time. However, if the au pair stays here for longer there is a case for the employer to give them paid and perhaps some unpaid holiday.

Your duties as a host family:
When you employ an au pair you have a duty as a host family to make their stay as happy as possible. Your are required to:

• Facilitate au pairs to attend courses.
  
• Provide a comfortable, private room and meals.
  
• Agree on free time and days off and stick to it.
  
• Help your au pair settle in and find their bearings - don't just leave them to get on with it.
  
• Try and treat your au pair as part of the family.

Finding an Au Pair:

• Most au pairs find work through agencies. Use bestbear.co.uk's au pair agency search to find a recommended agency in your area.
• Agencies will take your details and try and match you up with a suitable candidate. Unfortunately you don't have the opportunity to interview the au pair in person first and, other than a phone call, you have to hope for the best when your au pair arrives.

Points to help you decide if an au pair is for you:

• An au pair can be a real boon if children are of school age. They can prepare the children for school and look after them afterwards.
  
• Au pairs are an economical and, for many mothers with older children, very convenient way of lightening the load.
  
• Some families take au pairs from the same country for several years in a bid to make their children bi-lingual. One doctor who lives in North London has had au pairs from France for the past 10 years. As a result her five children are all fluent in French (but remember au pairs are here to learn English, not to teach young children their native tongue).
  
• Many families take on summer au pairs to help out during the long school holidays - agencies generally have good supplies.
  
• Au pairs only stay for about 6 months so you have to keep chopping and changing which can be disruptive to the household.
  
• Au pairs often speak basic English and for many it is their first time away from home - so problems such as homesickness and loneliness have to be confronted.
  
• If you have very young children an au pair isn't for you.

Best bear mums own tips on au pairs:
"If you have an au pair you have to treat them as part of the family otherwise they really do get lonely and depressed and then they are no use to anyone. I decided to make two evening meals and Sunday lunch special times for us to get to know our au pair. It gave her social occasions in the week to look forward to and also meant that we had time alone on the other nights without making her feel unwanted." Sophie Leithson, Banbury.

"If you want the advantage of live-in childcare and help around the house, at a very reasonable price, then you need to accept that your family has increased by one. Our au pair eats with us every evening: she is here as part of the family, so she eats with my husband and me - that's what being 'part of the family' means and when else are they going to learn English properly, if not during the conversation at dinner?

I make the effort to introduce them to other young people (not just au pairs) in the area, so that they can build a network of friends.

I find that printing out a day-by-day rota for the children, with notes on games kit/paino lessons/collection times from school is very useful in their first weeks.

Spend as long as possible talking to them on the phone before agreeing to have them live with you: if their English isn't great, will you be around all the time, to make sure what you have said has been understood? If you are at home with the children and will be there to supervise, then taking on an au pair with less advanced English skills is probably fine, but, if she will be on her own then you need to think about worst-case scenarios and engage someone who will understand if the school telephones to say that the child has been sick and needs to come home, whose English is good enough to make an emergency call if necessary.

If she is going to drive your children, where did she learn to drive? How rigorous is the test in her country, and how long has she been driving? I always choose German au pairs, as the German driving test is the toughest in Europe, but not all countries have the same standards as the UK.

I had a male au pair for a fortnight - the boyfriend of one of my former au pairs, covering a two-week gap between one au pair and the next - who was absolutely brilliant with my sons; they had the best half-term holiday ever, but my house was a disaster area! "
Carolyn Mackay, Colchester

If you have any tips on au pairs please email feedback@bestbear.co.uk