Help me figure out if this au pair is being mistreated

[Anonymous]

Do they have to stay in the same agency to rematch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, She does get 1 weekend off per month but thats it, The other weekends she works Sat and Sun during the day.

How is that supposed to be a cultural exchange?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do they have to stay in the same agency to rematch?

Yes, she does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, She does get 1 weekend off per month but thats it, The other weekends she works Sat and Sun during the day.

How is that supposed to be a cultural exchange?

The rules are that APs need to work 45 hours a week with 1.5 consecutive days off somewhere in there. They are also supposed to have 1 weekend off a moth.

While I think this host family seems harsh, they are within the rules (except for the overnight thing).
Why is working on a Saturday not a cultural exchange?

[Anonymous]

My heart goes out to the ones who get a "harsh" cultural exchange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My heart goes out to the ones who get a "harsh" cultural exchange.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they have to stay in the same agency to rematch?

Yes, she does.

Each agency should be required to disclose what percentage of attempted rematches are successful for the au pairs. Many get sent home after the allowable 14 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they have to stay in the same agency to rematch?

Yes, she does.

Each agency should be required to disclose what percentage of attempted rematches are successful for the au pairs. Many get sent home after the allowable 14 days.

HM here and I agree. There should be a lot more transparency.

[Anonymous]

From CCAP FAQ -

Q. What if the children are asleep? Does this count towards the hourly limit?
A. ALL sleeping hours count as working hours if your au pair is the person solely responsible for the children at that time. For example, if you leave for work at 5:00am and the kids do not get up until 7:00am, this still counts as 2 work hours for your au pair as she/he is the responsible adult in the home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From CCAP FAQ -

Q. What if the children are asleep? Does this count towards the hourly limit?
A. ALL sleeping hours count as working hours if your au pair is the person solely responsible for the children at that time. For example, if you leave for work at 5:00am and the kids do not get up until 7:00am, this still counts as 2 work hours for your au pair as she/he is the responsible adult in the home.

I would add that while this seems all fair, it really doesn't make sense for older kids. Mine are teenagers and we have an au pair mostly because of driving needs. We do sometimes leave for work before our AP is on duty, but our children are self-sufficient and AP would be welcome to use that time to leave and go to the gym if she wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She is through Cultural Care au pair. Hours are one issue I see, Because the Mom is home she will give her off the time the kids nap, getting her to work more hours in a day. Is that allowed?
I know youre allowed to split the day for school but for naps?

As long as it leaves a "meaningful" break this is allowed. Each agency seems to have their own rules about duration when it comes to time off being considered a real break.
If the kids are napping for multiple hours AND the au pair is allowed to leave the house then yes, Mom can do that.
30 minute naps and AP needs to stay home because Mom needs her if the kids wake up would most likely not be okay with the agency.

A split schedule is not only allowed for school but for any reason. She could just as well ask her au pair to work from 9 - 11 am and then from 3 pm to 11 pm if that is what she wanted. Unfortunately, the flexible program rules offer many ways for "abuse".

She also has her working every weekend ( both days) and gives her a day and a half off mid week. She only gets one weekend off a month. IM pretty sure this is allowed but doesnt seem fair and in the spirit of the program if she is not off when her friends are.

As you said, allowed.
Fair or not doesn't really matter. Is it "nice", especially if Mom is home with her and the kids? Probably not. But that's how the rules are.

This parents are going away for a weekend at the end of Nov and leaving the kids with the au pair for 2 days/2nights. Is this allowed?

No.
She cannot work more than 10 hrs / day. She cannot be alone with the children from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. What they can do is have granny (or whoever) stay for the weekend and have the AP work her regular hours those days for support.

She has her own bathroom but cant leave anything in it as its also the guest bathroom, not even her shower stuff.

Again, not nice but...

Are au pairs that live away from a metro supposed to have access to a car when theyre off?

No.
There is no rule that any family, metro access or not, has to provide the au pair with access to a car.
They have to make sure she can take her classes and attend her meetings but that's it.

Im in a tough place because I feel for this girl who is super nice, but I am 'friends' with the Mom.

What you can do is tell mom of your own experiences as an au pair and hope she gets it.
As she is mostly sticking to the rules the agency and government have set and provided... she doesn't have to change anything (besides leaving AP alone with the kids for a weekend).

I agree with all of this, but I can also say having recently gone into rematch, au pairs go into rematch (at their own request) for far less than this. While except for the weekend thing it's allowable, I think everyone would understand (well, except the host family!) if she decided to go into rematch. And once again, having recently gone through this process myself, I don't think this au pair would have much trouble finding a new family, because she's rematching for understandable reasons outside her control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From CCAP FAQ -

Q. What if the children are asleep? Does this count towards the hourly limit?
A. ALL sleeping hours count as working hours if your au pair is the person solely responsible for the children at that time. For example, if you leave for work at 5:00am and the kids do not get up until 7:00am, this still counts as 2 work hours for your au pair as she/he is the responsible adult in the home.

I would add that while this seems all fair, it really doesn't make sense for older kids. Mine are teenagers and we have an au pair mostly because of driving needs. We do sometimes leave for work before our AP is on duty, but our children are self-sufficient and AP would be welcome to use that time to leave and go to the gym if she wanted.

If that's the case than she's not working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I agree with all of this, but I can also say having recently gone into rematch, au pairs go into rematch (at their own request) for far less than this. While except for the weekend thing it's allowable, I think everyone would understand (well, except the host family!) if she decided to go into rematch. And once again, having recently gone through this process myself, I don't think this au pair would have much trouble finding a new family, because she's rematching for understandable reasons outside her control.

I am the PP you quoted. And I agree that if the AP decided to go into rematch a possible host family who has more reasonable and sensible expectations of what the program offers would definitely understand that she is rematching for reasons outside her control.

If I was her? I wouldn't want a gig like that.
I was one of the au pairs who could have had a crappy deal - midwest, four children including a toddler, a dog, 45 hr weeks (that usually turned into 47.5/50 hr weeks because parents ran late), shared bath, bedroom on family floor. I had a blast! My year was amazing. My host family was great. I still love my kids to bits, eventhough I don't really "know" them any more. But I was lucky in that my host family was amazingly fair - I had every weekend off, in my time off I was free to come and go as I pleased, I was welcome to family activities and just as welcome not join every family activity there was (and there were plenty with three school-aged children who were engaged in all sorts of extracuricular activities) - and all their expectations were completely reasonable (all kids alive and accounted for, kids' laundry done, dishwasher unloaded). I know many applicants wouldn't have matched with my host family. I know that some of their au pairs after me didn't think they were getting a good deal (they rematched with AP4 while I was visiting). Yes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush... but if AP is really unhappy (and OP doesn't only think AP should be unhappy) there is no reason she shouldn't be going into rematch.

(The bathroom thing drives me mad. She is not a guest. She is supposed to be considered a family member. I doubt the parents expect their children not to leave their toothbrush in the bathroom. What's wrong with leaving your shower gel in the shower? Even if it's a shared bath? I think that alone shows so much how little they care about their AP and her feelings. She is living there. She is using the bathroom. There is nothing wrong with her having her toothbrush, her shower gel, her shampoo and her towel in there. Unless of course you expect your AP to work and not be otherwise noticed. Which really shouldn't be the spirit of the program. Get a live-out nanny if you don't want your childcare provider to leave things around.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do they have to stay in the same agency to rematch?

Yes.
The familes can switch agencies, the au pair has to stay with the agency that sponsored her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Each agency should be required to disclose what percentage of attempted rematches are successful for the au pairs. Many get sent home after the allowable 14 days.

I'm a host mom (not an AP program naysayer), but I think this is a really good idea.

I wish AP companies were forced to report:
1) how many rematches were initiated by their APs
2) how many rematches were initiated by the HFs
3) (how many were "mutual")
4) and how many rematches were successful.

I think this would shed a lot of light on which agencies really are doing their jobs well. I've been a HM for 8 years now. I've mostly had good experiences (2 rematches), but I think both the good matches and the bad matches are primarily a product of whether both parties have similar, reasonable expectations about what the program is or isn't.

If you saw an Agency with a high number of rematches, to me, that indicates that the agency is not doing a good job of educating the participants.