getting an au pair

[mothergoose]

Does anyone have suggestions of the best way of getting an au pair QUICK?!

Our lovely au pair is leaving in 4 weeks which is a bit of a surprise. I found her on 'au pair world' but to be honest it took absolutely ages to decide as there was way too much choice and I'm not sure I can face trawling through it again.

Previous au pairs mostly were friends of aupairs which worked really well, but I am drawing a blank there as they are all a bit older now.

[iaineasy]

I was trying to get hold of an AuPair for ages............ then I got married and had a kid! :))

good luck

hugs

[snss75]

Does you current au pair maybe know of anyone suitable? I don't know if you have any preferences for the nationality of your au pair but if you'd consider a Scandinavian one you may want to try contacting the Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian churches in London so see if maybe an au pair who's already in London is looking for a new family? The Finnish church at least has a pretty active au pair network in London (they have regular meetings and maybe the co-ordinator would be able to put a word out?) and used to also have a notice board for stuff like this so it may be worth a try. I've also used Aupair World but like you said 4 weeks is a very short time to find someone from abroad. Anyway, is you're interested, here are links for the churches:

http://www.finnishchurch.org.uk/

http://www.swedishchurch.com/

http://www.norway.org.uk/Embassy/norwayuk/church/

[womanofdulwich]

try dulwich village shop windows i think i have seen a few their advertising their wares.

[snss75]

also, check Gumtree, maybe post an ad there?

[twinmummy]

I've just registered with Cinderella agency. They are local to ED. They charge a fee (pretty reasonable), but I figured the value of my time going through all those replies on au pair world and filtering out the dross - far better to get sent a few options suitable for your particular requirements. The lady who runs it (Trisha) was very nice on the phone and went through everything with me which saved lots of online form-filling.

http://www.cinderellaaupairs.co.uk/

[mothergoose]

How funny. I used to do a bit of cleaning for Cinderella agency when I was on holiday from university decades ago. Didn't know it was still around!

I have emailed the Finnish church to see what comes up, and will then try Gumtree.

Thanks for ideas.

[womanofdulwich]

we have also used abc au pairs in se22 who are good at keeping au pairs in touch with each other. maybe called ,linka too.