Some little information about this particular exchange program:

An Au Pair is a helper from a foreign country working for, and living as part of, a host family.

Mainly, they are responsible for the childcare, but they also do some light housework, which mostly falls again into childcare, and receives a weekly allowance, a kind of pocket money.

The formal arrangements can change according to the country. In Europe for example au pairs are supposed to work only part-time (no more than 30h per week) and they also study part-time, generally the language of the host country. In the United States, they could be asked to work full time (40-45h per week).

The Au Pair program is considered as a form of cultural exchange that gives the family and the au pairs the chance to experience and learn about other cultures, indeed the au pair is considered as a part of the host family and not merely as an employee.

It’s such a good opportunity for young people – girls in particular- to live abroad, learn about a new language and culture. Going abroad can be stressful and hard in terms of administrative and financial procedures: you will have to find an apartment, open a bank account, deal with insurance, bureaucracy, and settlement expenses, etc.

If you decided to take a gap year abroad, the Au Pair program can be a good solution: people can afford it even if they are not wealthy, traveling and having an experience abroad. The only thing you’re supposed to pay is your flight and/or train tickets to reach the chosen destination (but there are also families that offer to pay for part of it).

To find your host family you can go through agencies or use the most popular platform called Au Pair World. It is by far the most reliable site to find an Au Pair family, because:

• this is a big community, with many countries and family to choose from;
• it is free (for the Au Pairs; the families have to pay a small fee);
• the profile system it has: you can read all the available profiles, and use the filter to avoid the categories you are not interested in, thus making your search faster and more targeted.

The site is quite easy to use: you must follow the following simple steps:

1. Create your profile: complete it with texts, photos, videos and enter your own personal search criteria. Remember that, even if you have to give true information about yourself, you are still trying to be hired by the families that will be looking.

2. Start to search for a suitable family according to your preferences:

• countries, there are a lot of English-speaking countries, where people have different accents, (the Scottish one is quite difficult to understand for beginners); locations (Australia could be very interesting to visit, but it’s also very far away); cultures and so on;
• cities or villages: living in a big city or in a little village could make a huge difference. Do you like the countryside? Maybe you don’t mind rural settings! If you like nature, that could be a good idea. However, making new friends among other Au Pairs or people of your age won’t be as easy;
• if you smoke, you will have to find a host family accepting smokers;
• children: this is very important as you’ll have to look after children for your entire stay, so we suggest choosing families with no more than three children (it could be very tiring otherwise). Also, the children’s age is very important, especially if you’ve never dealt with newborn babies before. -Don’t take the risk- it’s a great responsibility! On the other hand, if you have to look after toddlers, you’ll have more free time. When they sleep, for example, you can read, watch the tv or go out for a walk.

3. Choose your favourite families and contact them to find your perfect match. During the interview (usually on Skype), the young Au Pairs and host families have the chance to introduce themselves, talk about their common interests, hobbies, pursuits, preferences, availability, and so on.