ProAupair

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have experience with ProAupair? We're trying to decide whether the agency is worth the extra cost.

[Anonymous]

This comes up every now and then, and the general consensus has been no. We have had great special needs-trained and experienced APs through the regular Ap program. I wouldn't see the point of going through ProAuPair with their much higher fees.

[Anonymous]

We've been very happy.

We've been with one of the big agencies and with ProAupair. I find the entire au pair selection process with ProAupair to be much less of a headache, because we easily identify and interview multiple applicants who are a good fit. Of course, you should screen each candidate thoroughly and do all the due diligence you'd do with any au pair candidate.

Whether the cost is worth it is a call only you can make. It's 100% worth it to us.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses. I think this does largely depend on your needs. I'm looking for my second Au pair after finishing up a great year with our first one. I am about to leave one of the larger agencies because I do need someone with special needs experience and the candidates they keep sending me are not at all qualified. One candidate was put into my file (when I had very specific criteria for experience with ASD) as a potential candidate because she worked "around" a child with ASD for one day (this is not an exaggeration) at a camp where she volunteered. Another was placed in my file to review and her SN experience was working in a preschool where one of the children had allergies. I know people who've found great candidates at the bigger agencies, but after three months of searching and not one even remotely viable candidate to interview, I'm ready to switch agencies. I don't know if the pool is smaller because the time of year, but I'm really quite surprised by the quality of candidates I've seen this year.

[Anonymous]

It may be worth it to have a look at ProAupair's pool. In their search function you can specify that you need someone who is experienced with special needs, and then you can specify what specifically you're looking for - experience with cerebral palsy, autism, etc. Then when you get to the au pair profile, you can see details about the au pair's childcare and special needs experience. I'm fairly sure you need a logon ID to see all of this, but you probably could get that set up quickly.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I can't speak to pro au pair, but we had an extrodinaire one year and she was FABULOUS. She was on track to finish her early childhood degree and was simply amazing with our kids. She was far more creative and took a lot more initiative than other APs. That said, as our kids are not SN, it wasn't worth the cost to continue, but I definitely could tell the difference.

[Anonymous]

We are at Interexchange. Last year, great experience for the most part. I have a SN child. This year, we have not had a good experience. I need an au pair for the beg. of August. I need to start interviewing. The poster who said no good candidates after 3 months of searching. Which agency are you with? I was thinking of trying APIA with an extraordinaire candidate. I am once again dreading this process.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We were with Cultural Care and I just signed up for Proaupair and all I can say is that the candidate quality is like night and day. I know there are diamonds in the rough with the larger agencies, but I don't have the energy to search anymore. I've already identified and will be interviewing two candidates in my first week of looking. For us, the extra cost at this point seems worth it. The search candidates and matching coordinator are worlds better than what I got st CC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We were with Cultural Care and I just signed up for Proaupair and all I can say is that the candidate quality is like night and day. I know there are diamonds in the rough with the larger agencies, but I don't have the energy to search anymore. I've already identified and will be interviewing two candidates in my first week of looking. For us, the extra cost at this point seems worth it. The search candidates and matching coordinator are worlds better than what I got st CC.

Good work OP! If I had a reason to need an extrodinaire, I would certainly use them.

[Anonymous]

That's fantastic news, OP! Best of luck with your au pair search. I hope you find a great fit for you and your family.

[Anonymous]

I'm so glad it's working out, OP. I had to chime in because I had a very similar experience (only I stopped searching cultural care and APIA after a month or so). I went with Pro Aupair and I found several options in the first few days and after extensively interviewing one of them matched within two weeks with someone with genuine, professional SN experience. My initial sense is that the Pro Aupair applicants tend to be a little older and so you have a better sense of their experience (meaning, they've had time to accumulate some).

[Anonymous]

Just be careful that the au pair you choose from Pro Au Pair has actually babysitting/nanny experience. I was so blown away that I was getting an OT that I overlooked the fact that she had relatively no basic childcare experience. My fault but the hefty price does not guarantee a great child care provider just because they come with a degree.

[Anonymous]

We were so disappointed in our experience with Pro Au Pair. Our prior au pair engagement was with Au pair in America, with a really good 2-year au pair. No agency or au pair relationship is perfect. But with hindsight, we would never pay the 50-70% premium that Pro AuPair commands. Simply no better than the others.

We were drawn to the promise of a more experienced, degreed, and professional caregiver. While we did get a PT degree, the match process was a nightmare. Our au pair and the interactions with the company were even more disappointing. They had very few serious candidates who actually appeared to be committed to being au pairs. We got the impression that many of the candidates were just window shopping.

Shame on us to some degree for being taken with the idea of a professional PT, but our au pair experience was a big disappointment. Seriously lacking English comprehension, minimal interest in doing the work, and with an apparent passion only for the local party scene.

[Anonymous]

We are also very disappointed in Pro Au Pair, and they are not worth the extra cost at all. While I agree that the initial applicant pool seems a lot better, and it's much easier to weed through than the million APs on the other sites, the benefits stop there. I deserve some blame I suppose for getting sucked into the appeal of a "professional" who had some specialized training, but we interviewed her multiple times and she came highly recommended by the matching specialist so we did everything we could to vet her. But in reality our AP completely oversold her childcare experience and isn't very good with my kids, is very immature, very flaky, and has a terrible work ethic. If you can find someone through one of the other agencies, I would do that.

[Anonymous]

Another unsaturated ProAuPair customer here. We were drawn in by their claims of professionalism. What we got were two completely unprofessional, lazy, and self-centered children. Their experience was greatly overstated, and they lied to us over and over again. The first girl was like having a spoiled teenager in the house. If you asked her to do anything differently, even in the most polite and constructive way, she would run up to her room and slam the door. Then she would demand use of the car and not come home until 2 am. We tried over and over to sit down with her and work on things, but I could only take it for about three months. Right after she left, we realized she ran into the garage door and didn't tell us. She also got a speeding ticket while my infant daughter was in the car.

The second girl failed out of her professional program and came to us on rematch because we were desperate. I was so hopeful we could make it work this time, and we really went out of our way making sure her hours were down to close to 30 per week and taking her with us on vacations. Her English pronunciation was terrible, and we would sit with her over dinner while she told us long, rambling stories that we didn't understand. Again, she had problems following basic rules. We had to go over shoes off in the house and on outside over and over. She also lied about running over our child's pool in the driveway (thank God she had just gone upstairs to take a nap), breaking our Vitamix blender (How? How? They blend all sorts of crazy things on YouTube), and taking my car for a couple hundred mile joyride. I get it--you want the best. You won't find it here.