What is an Au Pair?

[This post is more for people who are interested in being an Au Pair, but feel free to read it anyway :D]

Good Question!

An Au Pair is like a Nanny, but with less qualifications. I see it as Nannies are hired help and Au Pairs are Big Sisters. Next year I will be going to America as an Au pair with 'Cultural Care Au Pair'.

I will be staying with a family [don't know who they are yet] and I will look after their kids and pretty much becoming a member of their family. On top of that is free board and food - $195US a week, 1&1/2 days off a week, one whole weekend off a month, 2 weeks paid vacation, $500US towards 6 credits at a local college or university and one month of the end of my time there to travel around America. 

BEST GAP YEAR EVER!!!

I submitted my application yesterday! 

It was actually the second time I had submitted it because about a month ago I submitted it but didn't realise that my references were meant to prove my childcare hours, so I had to try again. 

I'm not sure if the Cultural Care people work on the weekend or not, so they may have started to call all my references already [last time they started the following day to submission], but they may not have.

I have joined a facebook group on facebook called 'Cultural Care Au Pair Australia' which is all the girls [and maybe some boys] who live in Australia who are planning on going or have gone to America as an Au Pair with this organisation. On it is where we all ask questions on how to fill in our applications, questions about how much money to take over etc. From reading some of the posts, it looks like after you submit your application within 1-2 weeks your application will have been passed onto a prospective host family and they will be reviewing you and you them.

With the Host Family/Au Pair selection process what happens is this [from my point of view]:

1. I fill in my application forms answering many many different questions like:
1. What are your interests?
2. How well can you swim?
3. Why do you want to be an Au Pair?
4. Would you feel comfortable living with someone with a different religion/race to you?
5. Would you feel comfortable living with a single mother/dad?
6. Can you live with pets?
7. and many many more questions
2. Get at least three references with at least one of both Childcare references [to prove your childcare hours and having to add up to 200 hours or more] and personal references. 
3. Submit your application.
4. The Cultural Care people will then call your references to check they are real and all that.
5. [from here on I am just guessing or know it will happen but I am not there yet]
6. If I am approved or to be finally approved, then I will have to then get a full medical and police background check.
7. Then with my extremely thorough application they will carefully match me with a host family and their needs. Everything is based off the host family though. So my application along with 2 others will be given to the family in which no other host family can look at our application so there's no competition. 
8. They will then e-mail us and we can read their application. 
9. At any point the host family can get rid of our application in which we will be put back into the 'Au Pair Pool' for other families to look at.
10. If they don't say no right away we can start to e-mail each other and if we both feel it is a good match, then they will call us to have a proper conversation. 
11. If after that we are both still happy then we talk to the Cultural Care people and tell them to finalize the match. 
12. Then all the things like Plane tickets, J-1 visas, insurance and final dates will be organized while me and the host family continue to talk and get to know each other. 

 When it's finally time for me to get on a plane to go to America, I have to make a stop of at New York for an Au Pair Training week. Here they teach us about child heath/ safety and psychology, fun activities and what to do in emergencies etc
During this week we get to have a tour of NYC!!

After that week is over, we then get to go to our Host families and the year begins!


I am very excited and hope to keep this blog updated with some videos and lots of photos to help the experience. 


Talk soon!
Caity