What do you include in your host family letter?

[Anonymous]

Our agency (and I think most?) requires a host family letter in the application. How detailed do you get? Ours is pretty thorough - basically, what the kids are like, what the house is like, what the schedule is, car/transportation access, what we look for in an au pair, etc. Do you give a total overview or do you just stick with the basics until you start talking? How is yours organized? I would love to hear anything you feel like sharing about your host family letter.

[Anonymous]

Ours is pretty thorough as well, and I think that is good as it gives a good idea of what our expectations are, and that seems to be where a lot of the problems arise when picking an au pair. If you lay out the schedule (yes its 40 hours per week!), tell them your son is sometimes a monster and you are working on not biting with him, talk about the kids many soccer practices, tell them about your family's kosher diet, how you have a car but don't let them drive it to DC, etc., it seems like you're less likely to get someone who can't work with all that.

[Anonymous]

I think it also depends a bit on the agency. We used APC last time, and I believe they basically asked for a letter for us to present ourselves, so it was pretty thorough. Recently, we filled out the CC family profile, and they ask a lot of questions that made some of what was in the comprehensive letter redundant. I still posted a family letter but with them it talked a bit more about what we like to do together and what kind of au pair we are hoping to have because most of the details about our family were contained elsewhere (kids ages, likes, personalities, schedules, etc). I believe in trying to present a balanced picture of the family--the great things and the challenges. The more comprehensive, the better.

[Anonymous]

You know what would be nice--if AP agencies gave host families the ability to click on a link to see what their family profile looks like from the AP's login/perspective. Like how Facebook allows you to see your profile from the lens of other users or the public. And it would be nice to see what some other family profiles look like. I'm not trying to be competitive here, but I do wonder what some of the other options out there look like.

[Anonymous]

I heard that many families don't bother filling out a lot of the boxes in the application. Which probably doesn't make it easy for the AP to know what to expect once she arrives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard that many families don't bother filling out a lot of the boxes in the application. Which probably doesn't make it easy for the AP to know what to expect once she arrives.

I'm the OP and I think we have the opposite problem - I sometimes wonder if I give too many details on the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know what would be nice--if AP agencies gave host families the ability to click on a link to see what their family profile looks like from the AP's login/perspective. Like how Facebook allows you to see your profile from the lens of other users or the public. And it would be nice to see what some other family profiles look like. I'm not trying to be competitive here, but I do wonder what some of the other options out there look like.

Interexchange does this option.