Reply to Are the monthly au pair meetings really mandatory?

Forum Index » Au Pair Discussion

Reply to "Are the monthly au pair meetings really mandatory?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]The "trouble" that your au pair may be setting herself up for is if she ever needs support from her LCC (particularly in a rematch situation, which all of us know is possible even if no one wants to think about it) the LCC will have very little incentive to help her if she has had no contact with your au pair.  It's in your au pair's best interest to have a relationship with her LCC, and the easiest way to develop a good relationship with the LCC is to attend meetings.  In rematch situations, our LCC has been able to reach out to other LCCs to find out about candidates.  The recommendation is much stronger if the response comes back as "I just LOVE ______, she's always so friendly to new au pairs and I can tell she's been having a hard time with her host family even though she's careful to not bad mouth them."  If the response comes back as "She seems nice but I haven't spent any time with her because she keeps skipping meetings" the recommendation sounds much different.

That being said, if she's a mediocre LCC she might not be much help anyway.  If the neighbor LCC is with the same agency you are developing a relationship with her might fill in this gap, although any rematch would still have to be run through your own LCC.  For similar reasons, I'd urge you not to "burn bridges" with the LCC on your own, as you'll need her support (if not now, in the future) if you ever go into rematch yourself.

Our LCC happens to be fabulous but I know others are not.  Ours sends out a schedule of cluster meetings about 4-6 months in advance - we at least have the dates of all but one meeting through June.  She told us up front that the March meeting is the annual meeting where the au pairs tour the Capitol, so she won't know which Saturday until she can get the tickets in January.  However, she's been an LCC forever, so many of her meetings are "known in advance."  The February meeting, for example, is always the meeting where she serves snacks and has someone come in and talk about filing taxes.

I don't think it's unreasonable for your to ask that your LCC at least give you date/times for 2-3 upcoming meetings now, even if she doesn't know details.  As for one meeting that cost $25, I'd be curious if all of her meetings cost money, or if this is the single annual meeting that costs money (and most au pairs I know do go to some kind of Fright Fest, so she may have thought this was a cost she'd incur in any case, right or wrong).[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics