Hi au pairs/nannies, our family:
1st Parent: Amanda(female)
2nd Parent:
Regan(male)
Location:
New Zealand
Membership No:
363943
We would like a nanny / au pair who:
Required From: 1 Oct, 2022 Required To: 31 Oct, 2023
Introduction of the family offering the au pair / nanny job:
SAFETY WARNING: if you see any contact details below, DO NOT CONTACT THIS FAMILY but
report it to us! It might be a scammer who will ask you for money.
We are looking for a live-in au pair or nanny for our 3 boys & Mr Smooch our cat.
We are looking for someone who has experience working with young children and is comfortable working with children aged 4-7yrs age. We want someone for about 1 year or longer. We will not consider applications under 10 months. Do not pay for a visa until you are sure you have the right visa, travel details and job information. If you do not have this yet, wait until you have a job offer before you apply.
Our international boarders have reopened after 2 years. We are so happy that we can get to have au pairs again! Our current carer is April (from Australia). April has been with us this year and is moving with her family soon, so we are looking for another person to join us from October 2022. There are some essential travel and job requirements to know about.
TRAVEL & JOB REQUIREMENTS:
- Unless you are a New Zealand or Australian citizen (or arriving from Antarctica), you need to be COVID vaccinated before you can get a visa to travel here.
- Some visa categories require you to also hold insurance as a condition of your visa. Before you buy travel insurance, check what cover it provides for COVID-19-related events, including medical treatment, the cost of changing flights or paying for accommodation if you need to isolate in New Zealand. A range of services are not publicly funded, and these differ between countries. If you travel to New Zealand from any country, we still recommend buying travel insurance to cover the cost of any medical treatment you may need while you are in New Zealand. Doctor visits are about $80. COVID-19 tests are free for everyone here.
- Agency 'orientation fees' do not usually include any of your visa fees, return airfares, airport transfers or personal travel and medical insurance. These are all costs that you have to pay. New Zealand au pair / nanny agencies charge you 'orientation fees' of about $800 NZD, in addition to your travel costs. Our family is also charged 'placement fees' by agencies. You should wait and talk to us before registering with any agencies or paying any fees. We have hosted may people for many years. We can both save a lot of money and time if you let us support you with information first.
- Before you start working, you will do a 2 day orientation with an au pair / nanny agency here at a hotel to settle in and get over your jet lag. Your flights might be cheaper on an earlier date. We don't expect you to spend more money waiting in a hotel by yourself for everyone else to arrive. You can just come to our home and rest. We live near the airport and can drop you back at the hotel on the day your orientation course starts. You will have to pay 'orientation fees' (about $800NZD as mentioned above). You will be given information to help you understand more about New Zealand culture, the law here and your employment rights and responsibilities in this job. For example; smacking a child is illegal here, and doing that will get you fired. Smacking may also result in a criminal conviction. Children in New Zealand can be just as challenging to care for, as children in your country. At orientation you can get some strategies to cope and manage child behaviour and your own wellbeing more safely. You will also meet other au pairs and nannies doing the same training. If you do not have a first aid certificate to the same standard or better than New Zealand's, then you will also need to do a Child First Aid course here (about $75 NZD).
We will reimburse you the cost of your 'orientation fee/s' including a NZ course for Child First Aid, at the end of your contract, on a pro-rata basis. This means if you paid $875 in 'orientation fees', and work for us for 12 months, then we will repay you 100%. If you only end up working 6 months we will reimburse 50%. If you quit in less than a month then we will not reimburse any fees. Most au pairs and nannies pay these costs and are not reimbursed by their host families.
We pay upfront for you to do some short training workshops during the year to learn about Autism and ADHD. Workshops will help you to understand our children's needs better and how to communicate with them more effectively. We have a lot of experience with disabilities and we still do ongoing training and get support ourselves. We will provide a support person for you from an au pair/nanny agency. From time to time we may also get a specialist person like a behavioural psychologist to support you (and us) with some 1-to-1 training to address any challenges. We pay for this.
JOB TASKS:
- You can expect to all the things that parents could reasonably expect to do when caring for children aged 4-7yrs; keep them safe, behave legally and responsibly, feed the children, drive them to school, care for them etc. Our children are used to having carers. They feel safe when you are fair and consistent with them. They will want to get to know you quickly and once they feel connected, they will treat you like a 3rd parent.
- You need to hold a current full driver license from your country and be used to driving. We will give you an automatic car to use. We live in a city with ~1.5 million people. We drive on the LEFT side of the road.
- It is helpful if you know how to cook basic dinners already. You will be helping with making all the children's meals and snacks. You will also do basic dinner preparation for the family. New Zealanders eat a western diet with meat and dairy food. We have had vegetarians live with us before. If you already know how to cook and eat properly then you will be ok. You don't have to cook like Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver but it is important you trust yourself with cooking some simple meals. This is so that you can take care of yourself and not get sick (this will happen if our diet is too different from what you are used to eating). We don't like spicy food. We eat the food that is in season and affordable here (e.g. exclude berries, melons and exotic or tropical fruits that have to be imported). Look on the internet for ideas about seasonal food in available in New Zealand throughout the year.
- There are some domestic duties. In our family, we expect our kids to help tidy up after themselves. They must take their dirty laundry to the basket and try to tidy their mess. You will be doing your own laundry and helping with the children's laundry. You will need to support with doing the washing and helping them fold and put their clothes away. We encourage their participation and effort rather than the end result. They can brush their teeth, you will need to remind them. They can shower and dress themselves, you need to remind them to get in and then remind them to get out again. You will vacuum the kids bedrooms and one might manage doing the hallway. You will change the kid's linen once a week and they can help with making their beds. Parents do their own laundry and will help out too.
- Keep your own room tidy and look after your belongings. Our kids are not allowed in your room but we recommend you put away your passport, keys, wallet and valuables so that our children don't damage or play with your personal items.
- We want our kids to have fun but it is not your job to make them feel happy all the time. If you become miserable and stressed then they will be unhappy too. We spend a lot of time answering every question before we offer a job to someone. You also don't need to have any training in disabilities. We provide all the training you need to do this job. During your first week you will have our current carer April supporting you with learning how to do the job.
Every person we have had over the years has stayed to the end of their contract. It is important to us that we match with the right person. You are welcome to have your family on video calls with us if you want. We recommend you have people to support and encourage you to make good choices. We are looking for someone who is realistic about how to look after their own wellbeing. We will want to know abo
More au pair/nanny related information :