Best Bear Review Page 141

Best Bear is the culmination of effort by working mothers, childcare professionals and journalists, and between them they have produced this highly informative, but friendly site.

Their mission is to compile the definitive list of the country's best childcare agencies. This is not just a database - the Best Bear team have spent months grilling agencies, with their resident qualified nanny incognito, posing as a potential employee. So far they have investigated about 1000 agencies, testing their interviewing and reference checking procedures. Approximately 150 made the grade, and the results are here to view, with a short synopsis of the service they offer, and the areas they cover.

Two cuddly bears greet you on the site homepage. Click on Parents This Way to get to the Parents Homepage, which, in addition to finding childcare, has features on topical childcare issues, such as How Will the Budget Affect You? And as assessment of the Childcare Commissions's recent report.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Childcare Info is a database of articles explaining your childcare options, including details of pay expectations, employment regulations and generally what to expect when looking for childcare.

Find a Childcarer explains how the Best Bear team investigated the childcare agencies in How We Tested Our Agencies, and is also an extensive search facility, which allows you to search for an appropriate agency by postcode. Unlike many other childcare websites that focus on London and the South East, Best Bear covers the regional agencies, and also covers employing a nanny from abroad.

Parents Forums is a useful forum for people wishing to discuss childcare issues. Discussion is intelligent and usually courteous (as ordered by the Best Bear team) and topics are varied, covering employers' dilemmas, such as what to do about a nanny who's taking the children's old clothes, to the difficulties of finding childcare as a single father.

OTHER FEATURES

Read about the team in About Us, join the Best Bear as a member in Join Us, and calculate the tax you'll have to pay with the Nannytax calculator.

Hard work and thorough investigation have gone into making Best Bear an essential site for those looking for reliable childcare.

Best Bear was judged to deserve a Five Star rating, the highest that the Good Web Guide give to any site