VENT: I have had it with Cultural Care's new matching system!!!!

[Anonymous]

I'm just venting here - i know this has been covered before but ARGH i have had it with Cultural Care's new system. We should be an "easy to match" family. One older kid, right outside a very favored city. AP car, only occasional weekends (once every 2 or 3 months probably). Member of the family approach. Good history (we are on AP5, all stayed one year; we are in touch with all of them). I usually have to watch out for the lazies - but otherwise have had good success during matching.

Yet over and and over again, this year, connection requests are ignored for almost a week (then I just disconnect). Or they might accept the connection request and never respond to the email I send. (they don't even disconnect - they just do nothing). Or those that respond and are interested take FOREVER to respond to emails (some almost a week,.... without so much as a "hey, I'm really busy, I will respond next week" which would be FINE wiht me!)...... and despite knowing better, I find myself giving them the benefit of the doubt b/c 10 families at the same time is alot to juggle, along with school and/or work. The ones who are quicker to respond end up being not good candidates (Q "what would you do if you were watching your brother (same age as our child) and he didn't listen" A: I'd tell my mom and dad and they would make him listen." Me inside my head: "Really?!?!" )

I'm usually matched by now for an Aug arrival. (I usually match in Feb or March). It's been months of this. We were hoping for one more year of having APs b/c it's a great flexible system that has been awesome for us (we have been lucky and have had rock stars and are in touch with all prior APs and their families, whom we consider extended families). DD is an only child and she loves having a cool young woman around. But I think the delay caused by this matching system has pushed me over the edge and we are done.

OK venting over. Thanks for reading/listening.

[Anonymous]

Unless your daughter is old enough to be on her own at home, maybe change agencies...you still have time. Don't let their ridiculous matching system ruin what has been a good experience for you and your family. Had I not quit my job, I would have continued with APs until our older daughter was driving. She was just too busy not to have a driver around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless your daughter is old enough to be on her own at home, maybe change agencies...you still have time. Don't let their ridiculous matching system ruin what has been a good experience for you and your family. Had I not quit my job, I would have continued with APs until our older daughter was driving. She was just too busy not to have a driver around.

I've thought about it but we have lost a lot of time and now it seems like all the new profiles coming on are candidates who JUST got their drivers' license last month (or there are old profiles for people who are not attractive and have not matched yet for good reason). I assume this would be similar for other agencies. Sort of feel like putting my adjustment energy towards a non-AP solution to see how it goes.

But i suppose it's worth asking: anyone have thoughts on which agency would be good for those of us fleeing CC? I don't need someone with a bunch of toddler experience, more someone with younger sibs in preteen age group and strong drivers (I match from Sweden).

[Anonymous]

How is the CC matching system any different from APIA?

[Anonymous]

We had more luck with CCAP than APC and APIA. APIA didn’t even respond at all. And APC only had candidates from limited countries but were at least responsive. But I agree CCAP system is a mess. We had several connections go ignored also for many days/weeks.

[Anonymous]

Sort of feel like putting my adjustment energy towards a non-AP solution to see how it goes.

Yes! This is my plan. The program hassles are really starting to outweigh the benefits.

[Anonymous]

You should let Boston know. They need to hear the feedback. They switched the program so it favors the AP's. They need to rebalance.

[Anonymous]

I had so many complaints for Boston during our last matching process. Fortunately we found a good match and are excited for it but it took much more work and I had maybe a 10% response rate from au pairs. Most accepted the connection but never replied to me...

[Anonymous]

APC has the more traditional matching system still. AP and HF only get 3 connections for 72 hours. You can call your matching person and they can manually add additional connections for 24 hours if you're having problems with responses/response times. We found a match there within two weeks. I still had the back and forth email, then the "not the right match" or some who instantly said we wouldn't fit from the first email. But at least we got responses and I know we're much harder to match than you (3 kids, one as a newborn).

CC I had no luck in because either I got no response to the connection request or really slow response/weird candidates who responded.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I have complained quite a bit to my matching coordinator and my LCC, both of whom have said they are passing it up the stream. My LCC (whom I adore) said this was done to help families... i don't see how that could be the case. I was also told they used "10" as the number for how many families the Aps can connect with b/c their data showed that 10 was the average number of families that AP candidates had to talk with before they matched. 10 families over several weeks or months is highly different than 10 AT ONCE. That seems to obvious to me.

Reading PP's post about the 72 hour thing that APC has seems like a very good idea. There is ZERO sense of urgency on the part of the CC APs - and when combined with the fact that they can connect with up to 10 families, it's just long, slow road. CC needs to put in a time limit and lower the number of families to 4 or 5. Even one of my AP candidates said she thought 10 was too many (I asked what she thought of it and explained that it was new/different).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I have complained quite a bit to my matching coordinator and my LCC, both of whom have said they are passing it up the stream. My LCC (whom I adore) said this was done to help families... i don't see how that could be the case. I was also told they used "10" as the number for how many families the Aps can connect with b/c their data showed that 10 was the average number of families that AP candidates had to talk with before they matched. 10 families over several weeks or months is highly different than 10 AT ONCE. That seems to obvious to me.

Reading PP's post about the 72 hour thing that APC has seems like a very good idea. There is ZERO sense of urgency on the part of the CC APs - and when combined with the fact that they can connect with up to 10 families, it's just long, slow road. CC needs to put in a time limit and lower the number of families to 4 or 5. Even one of my AP candidates said she thought 10 was too many (I asked what she thought of it and explained that it was new/different).

If I had to guess, this was done to decrease their rematch rate. So many APs in our cluster rematch. I assume CC wanted to decrease the rematch cost. And I get it. Not only is this a cost to the agency, but also a big stresser to HFs (and APs). But their solution did not work. I was very vocal about it with my LCC and the matching specialist, and I also called Boston. I am not hopeful that CC will change much next year. The Boston folks told me. Thank you for your feedback. This was just phase 1 of their new system, next fall they will roll out phase 2. To me, it sounded like they did not listen at all. All they were focused on was their phase 2, whatever it may be. I hope that other agencies will see this as an opportunity to step in and gain host families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I have complained quite a bit to my matching coordinator and my LCC, both of whom have said they are passing it up the stream. My LCC (whom I adore) said this was done to help families... i don't see how that could be the case. I was also told they used "10" as the number for how many families the Aps can connect with b/c their data showed that 10 was the average number of families that AP candidates had to talk with before they matched. 10 families over several weeks or months is highly different than 10 AT ONCE. That seems to obvious to me.

Reading PP's post about the 72 hour thing that APC has seems like a very good idea. There is ZERO sense of urgency on the part of the CC APs - and when combined with the fact that they can connect with up to 10 families, it's just long, slow road. CC needs to put in a time limit and lower the number of families to 4 or 5. Even one of my AP candidates said she thought 10 was too many (I asked what she thought of it and explained that it was new/different).

If I had to guess, this was done to decrease their rematch rate. So many APs in our cluster rematch. I assume CC wanted to decrease the rematch cost. And I get it. Not only is this a cost to the agency, but also a big stresser to HFs (and APs). But their solution did not work. I was very vocal about it with my LCC and the matching specialist, and I also called Boston. I am not hopeful that CC will change much next year. The Boston folks told me. Thank you for your feedback. This was just phase 1 of their new system, next fall they will roll out phase 2. To me, it sounded like they did not listen at all. All they were focused on was their phase 2, whatever it may be. I hope that other agencies will see this as an opportunity to step in and gain host families.

OP here again. This is a very astute analysis. I hadn't thought of the fact that rematch might be the motivation for the new system but it makes perfect sense. They have basically thrown the baby out with the bathwater (bad pun for a childcare discussion, sorry!) though b/c it seems they are primarily driving down initial matches and driving away customers. It seems they should have taken a more gradual approach between their prior single-family hold approach and the current free for all. I could have matched long ago, I'm sure, had I changed my criteria but so far my formula/matching methods have worked very well for me and I'm not changing them and risking a bad match. I'd rather find a plan B, whether that's another agency or a non-Ap option.

[Anonymous]

Since it's free to sign up (except for the transaction cost/friction of having to enter all your information over again in a different format....) I'd definitely sign up with APIA at a minimum to scope their candidates. We had APIA APs for all 5 of our APs and were happy with all except the first, which I blame myself for because I didn't know what to look for. As an agency though we were happy with them and found decent candidates even though we're a harder family than you are (3 kids, full schedule).

[Anonymous]

God, I am so happy I found this thread. I was feeling totally dejected by my experience with CC and now I can see that I am not the only one. I have already registered with two other agencies because I have no confidence that I will be matched with CC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God, I am so happy I found this thread. I was feeling totally dejected by my experience with CC and now I can see that I am not the only one. I have already registered with two other agencies because I have no confidence that I will be matched with CC.

You should know that pretty much all HFs hate it. I'm on a few Facebook sites with host moms, and EVERYONE is struggling with the new CCAP matching system. Make sure you let the Boston office know that you're looking at other agencies because of your frustration and annoyance with the new system.