Hiring a nanny is a sophisticated process that involves searching, interviewing, checking references and extending an offer to the right candidate. When the nanny has accepted your offer, the final step is conducting a criminal background check. Your offer should be contingent on the outcome of those results.

What to check?
It’s hard to imagine that in this era of the Internet and computerization there is no reliable national criminal database that is accessible by the public. The “gold standard” for checking a nanny’s background is to first run a search using her Social Security Number to see where she has lived in the past seven years. This is done so that a decision can be made on which counties should be searched. Yes, that’s right, these searches are done county by county, not nationally. Few states have a reliable criminal index that is suitable for nanny background checking because nannies tend to commit misdemeanors at most. Many of these indexes only turn up people who have felony convictions and/or have served time. Many states don’t have statewide indexes at all.

Which counties should you search?
Obviously the safest method is to check each county, but in some cases this can get quite costly. A fairly typical scenario may be a nanny who left home to go to college, after which she may have changed schools and then moved again after graduation. So let’s say she’s 23 now and there are four years that can be searched since she turned 18.

2001 — lived at home, 18 years old
2001-2003 — moved for college
2003-2005 — lived at her second college
2005 — moved after graduation to another city

In this case, since she turned 18 at home and moved shortly thereafter, the duration of time spent at her home residence and the city she moved to after graduation is brief. For someone who wanted to hold their costs down, the two most likely locations to check would be the two cities she lived in from 2001-2005. Again, if you want to be absolutely certain and costs are not an issue, you would need to check each place that appears on the Social Security address check.

What other types of checks can be performed?
Driving records are very important if there is driving involved in your job. A credit report can be ordered if you feel that information may be important to your decision. There is a sexual offenders list for each state that should be checked as well. There are numerous other reports that may be ordered if you feel the need.

How do I perform the check?
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (which applies to more than just credit checks) requires that you have a written release from your nanny to perform the check. This form is downloaded and filled out by the family and then completed and signed by the nanny.

What are some of the limitations of the checks?
Every company that does these checks warns that these reports cannot guarantee complete accuracy. Also, there is a charge for each type of check that you order, so figuring out your budget ahead of time can help you prioritize which type of checks to run.

All in all, running a background check on a potential nanny for your children is essential. These steps should help make that process more informative and resourceful.

About the Author
Steve Lampert is the President of www.enannysource.com, a web-based nanny search service. Prior to starting the company in 2001, he was president of a well-known nanny agency in Los Angeles. He lives with his wife of 13 years and 8 year-old son in the San Fernando Valley in California. His son’s nanny has been with the family since he was born.

Any parent or parents can benefit from having some good au pair agencies on their side. If you have not had the chance to find out much about au pair agencies yet then there is no time like the present. It is important that you get only the very best care for your children and au pair agencies can give this to you. When you choose to work with au pair agencies you will be choosing safety and security every single day that you leave your children with the nanny.

Au pair agencies send you the perfect child care worker and this woman will generally be expected to work several hours each and every day. For example most of them will work at least 5 hours each and every day, she will receive room and board for this work as well as a small allowance for any other needs that she may have.

The au pair agencies also request that you give your au pair a couple of weeks paid vacation each year, usually every 6 months or so. This is a great way to keep your au pair agencies and the au pairs themselves happy and contented. The happier she is the happier your children will be in the long run. Au pair agencies are fantastic services that will provide.

Most of the women that au pair agencies employ are coming from another country to yours. This means that they are choosing to travel overseas and this is usually to help improve their language skills while making a living. The vast majority of those who work for au pair agencies also take some classes to help them learn the language that much faster.

There is no other agency that can compare to au pair agencies, they are one of a kind and well worth investigating. You do need to watch out for a few choice things however. For example, au pair agencies do not require that their au pairs have special training of any kind. Some of those who work for au pair agencies have no experience with children whatsoever. It is a good idea to hire your au pair from the au pair agencies and then watch her for a while to see if she is really a good fit for your family. You may not want to leave your kids alone with her until you have watched to see just how she interacts with them. Try to determine if she even likes kids and how she deals with them when angry, does she discipline them the way that you would like to see them disciplined.

You can benefit enormously from working with au pair agencies. They will provide you with all of the extra help that you need with your kids and for a great affordable price. You will also be helping another individual meet their own personal goals and dreams, this is just another added bonus of working with au pair agencies. So if you have not yet checked into au pair agencies then you should start doing so today.

About the author
http://aupairsnanny.com/ Au Pairs and Nannies: Looking after the welfare of your child.

The statistics for Moms who work outside the home are staggering. One study reads that after daycare, taxes, gasoline, and food and clothing expenses, the average woman working outside the home earns approximately $1 per hour. Mothers facing this kind of financial reality often look for ways to earn money right from their homes, thus cutting out the extra expenses related to maintaining an outside career. But they soon find out that staying home with the kiddos presents its own unique challenges. Without the solid line between work and home, how do moms with home businesses juggle the balance between their business and those they do it for?

Susie Arevalo, owner of the cloth diapering business Lucy Luvs, has found many ways to keep her business growing, while raising three small children. Not only does she home school and have an active toddler underfoot, she is also alone for an extended period of time while her husband is deployed in Iraq as a combat medic.

First things first she says is to treat your business like a business, not a hobby. She has set business hours for Lucy Luvs and keeps them religiously. Otherwise the demands of household and childcare tasks can very easily compete with the work she has committed herself to doing. Recently, she hired a mother’s helper to come care for her children during her set business hours of 8 a.m.-12 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. While they are under the care of the mother’s helper, Susie can still keep an ear out for her little ones while still being able to concentrate on her business activities. One phrase she hears a lot when recommending a mother’s helper to other work at home moms is that they cannot afford it. As she says “I can’t afford not to have her.”

Without regular business hours is often difficult to find the time to attend to your business without the guilt that you could be doing something else. As they say a woman’s work is never done. A majority of mothers with work at home businesses try to isolate their work to the hours after the children go to bed. While a lot can be done after their bedtime, you also take the chance of being ready for bed yourself by this time of night. To combat relying only on nighttime hours to do your work, an established daytime routine, that includes time for your business is essential. This can be very hard to establish, with laundry needing switched, dishes needing done, etc. But it CAN be done. Write down a routine you feel comfortable with and stick to it. It doesn’t have to be strict. Just write down the order in which you would like to see things done during the day. I have found that if I keep a schedule that relies heavy on getting certain tasks done by certain times in the day, I always get “behind” and then discouraged. One lifesaver for me has been the Flylady routine. The email reminders get deleted all day long, but they still serve their purpose, even if I don’t always read them. One thing I have found is that most of the tasks I always thought took so long, don’t take anymore than 15 minutes. Dreaded tasks like laundry, which I somehow never have managed to endear myself too, take a lot less than the allotted 15 minutes.

One of the sweetest aspects of running a work at home mom business is the free advertising you can get just by living your life. Susie has built a solid local business just by having her daughter in one of the diapers she sells on her website. Her daughter is a walking advertisement. With new websites like Café Press, you can have your business logo printed on any number of items to carry with you, or to have your child wear. These are bound to stir up some conversations when you go on an outing. High dollar advertising is not required when you truly love what you do. Your passion for your product or service speaks for itself and it gets people interested. It also speaks volumes to those who can see you have a family and still find the time to pursue this business, which says it’s something worth while.

Running a business from home does include one very important aspect…..the home. This can and should be your first priority. If you have chosen to stay home because you want to be with your children, or don’t want someone else raising them, keep that your focus. This business should run around your family, not the other way around. This is the beauty of owning your own business. If your little one is sick and just needs Momma for the day, you can shut your phone off, refuse to answer emails and just be the Mom for the day. If you need to answer emails, you can keep a basket of your baby’s favorite toys beside your desk to keep them occupied. It really is all about what works for you. Don’t ever get frustrated and give up you hit a bump in the road. Find a solution that’s all your own and fits with your family. When you are overwhelmed with business piling up, take a break and go play Legos or dollhouse. There’s something so relieving about taking the time to remember why you are doing this in the first place.

In a business where Baby is boss, there are many ways to keep the balance. There is no magic formula, no right or wrong way and nothing that can make success come faster than the problems you have to solve to get there. Because no one has been the Mom in YOUR family, no one will be able to tell you exactly how to set up your own home business. It’s all trial and error. Your job is to take each obstacle and find a way that you can overcome it. For some, it’s cutting back business. For other’s it’s finding a way to treat the business more like a real business and for yet others its simply finding the perfect toy to keep baby occupied while you complete a needed task. Just keep trucking along and doing what you love, for the people you love. That’s the true measure of success!

For more information about how to set up and run a home based business please visit www.diaperdecisions.com and click on “Small Business Tools.”

About the Author:
Melissa Coffey is co-owner of Diaper Decisions, a company dedicated to promoting work at home moms in the natural parenting industry. She is a homeschooling mother to four wonderful children and best friend to her husband, a Radiation Protection technician at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico.