Cultural Care Au Pair received almost 200 nominations for the “Au Pair of the Year” Award, three of which we sent to the International Au Pair Association for final consideration. (Each au pair agency is allowed to submit just three nominees.) Watch our movie to meet Cultural Care Au Pair’s three finalists, Ann-Kathrin, Patrizia and Sandra and to see photos and the names of ALL of our nominees. Thanks to all of our host families who submitted nominations, and congratulations to each and every Cultural Care au pair who was nominated. You are all winners in our book!
Be sure to bring a camera with you to all of your monthly meetings and capture those memorable images and post them on your LCC website. Let your au pairs know that these pictures will be posted each month and encourage them to send your website link to their friends and family back in their home country so they can see all the fun they are having in the USA! Invite your host families to share their favorite moments with their au pair as well and ask them to submit to you any photos they would like to have you share on your site. LCC websites are a wonderful place to share the memories that au pairs are making throughout the year and is a great vehicle to share this with countless others.
Cultural Care au pairs in Greenwich and Stamford, CT took to the ice for an au pair meeting in January. The result? Nothing but a whole lotta fun! In fact, Local Program Director Lee Anna Whitely got lots of feedback from her group about their skating adventure.
What was the funniest thing you overheard out on the ice: The funniest thing I overheard was a Brazilian au pair saying: “Hey, easy like Sambaaaaa” right before she fell down! -Elisabeth Leiss from Austria
I was too focused on not falling that so didn’t listen to much out there. :) -Taylah Bell from Australia
What was your best move out on the ice? Holding on to the rail and the people around me to avoid falling. That would be my signature move. -Taylah Bell from Australia
That must have been my pirouettes! -Johan Dagmar from Sweden
I didn’t try to make any special moves because I was just happy that I didn’t fall, because I haven’t been ice-skating since several years! -Franziska Kirchner from Germany
What was most fun about this ice-skating adventure? My favorite part was when Johan “Superman” Dagman fell twice on the ice, like a real princess! -Tobias Johannson from Sweden
I got back into ice-skating without falling over, I got to meet new au pairs and see my awesome LCC and I got to experience winter in fine form ice-skating its self! it was an AWESOME meeting!-Taylah Bell from Australia
It was my first au pair meeting here in the U.S. It was fun getting to know all the other au pairs from this area and at the same time having fun on the ice!-Franziska Kirchner from Germany
While the media continues to cover the devastation in Haiti, au pairs may be faced with some difficult questions from the host children about what happened and what it means. The au pairs are undoubtedly having their own personal response to this tragedy and they may appreciate some guidance or direction from their host parents about how they would like them to deal with these kinds of questions. In addition to providing an opportunity for your families to make a donation, if they so choose, through the fundraising initiative we announced last week it may be helpful to also suggest that this issue be a topic of discussion between host parents and au pairs so that everyone can be on the same page regarding how this should be handled. The devastation experienced by the people of Haiti is unimaginable, but understanding how to talk about it is important and that’s a personal choice for every family. If you have any au pairs in your group that are having any difficulty with this situation and would appreciate the support of one of our Program Counselors, please reach out to your Program Director and we would be more than happy to make this resource available to them.
Hello guys!! Sorry it’s been a while but with all the holiday stuff and my birthday (yay finally 21!) I was pretty busy.
I hope you enjoyed Christmas and New Years as much as I did!! I had my friend Robert from Germany over to visit me and we had a really fun time! I showed him all around Boston and we also took a weekend trip to New York. We were very lucky…the hostel we had booked had to close because they had some issues with the police…so they put us in a hotel for the same price. We also got Knicks tickets for free! It was great! My host family welcomed him very nicely, so he had the opportunity to stay with us for 10 days and celebrate an American Christmas! He had a blast and will hopefully come back soon!
On the occasion of the earthquake in Haiti, which sadly happened on my birthday, I want to appeal to all of you to spend some money!! They really need it! It’s awful!! I have some Haitian friends here and it’s horrible—none of them has heard anything of their families yet!! So please help them by donating some money…you can easily do it… just send a text with “HAITI” to 90999 and $10 will go to the Red Cross Relief Efforts!
At last I’ll give you some tips for activities with your kids in this cold weather! I just joined a “music together” class where I go every Friday with Henry…you can find these classes, or gym classes everywhere…they’re fun and not outside!! At home just pull out some board games…I’m sure there are a lot you might have never tried before…go ahead and try them! My kids really get into that!! Also you can bake, do arts and crafts…for example your own board games! And I’m sure your kids have gotten a lot of toys for Christmas to play with anyways. If you’re kids like being outside, go sledding, skiing or ice-skating!!
At Cultural Care Au Pair and our parent company EF Education First, we believe in connecting people as citizens of the world, and breaking down barriers of language, culture and geography. Never is that mission more important than in a time of crisis. In order to reach out to the people of Haiti, EF Education First will match up to $100,000 of employee, student and customer donations made through the American Red Cross. We believe this is our responsibility as a company, as educators and as global citizens. We hope you will join us in our effort to aid the millions of Haitians who need our support. Together, we can make a difference.
This past fall, Cultural Care Au Pair launched another customer satisfaction survey to our host families…and the consensus is that they are overwhelmingly happy! To share few of the stats:
• 96% of host families are satisfied with the quality of childcare that their au pair provide • 95% are satisfied with the support provided by their Local Childcare Coordinator • 97% are pleased with the choice they made to use the services of Cultural Care Au Pair • 96% would recommend the services of Cultural Care Au Pair to other families:
We’re thrilled with these results, which are certified by independent survey company Discovery Surveys, Inc. In fact, our participation rate (52% of active host families this time around) and the results themselves have improved each of the four times we have administered the surveys (spring and fall of 2008 and spring and fall of 2009). For more detailed survey information, visit our website.
Thank you to our current host families for partcipating and for helping us to further improve our program!
Each month you make calls to each of your host families to check in and to see how things are going. You undoubtedly have some updates or upcoming meeting dates to share during these calls, but try asking them to share one thing that’s going well and one challenge they’ve had over the past month. Take note of these for each family and at the end of the year as they prepare to welcome a new au pair, share their year of feedback. It may be helpful for them and may help to set them up for even more success having been given the gift of perspective of a year in review. It’s also an incredibly helpful tool for you as an LCC and can assist with additional talking points during the repeat family interview or even the orientation meeting once the au pair arrives.
The New Year is a perfect time to finally transform some of those long time ideas, thoughts, and intentions into plans. Au pairs have one year to do all of the things that they hope to and that time can fly by very quickly. Unless they are extending, their year could be coming to an end and it would be a shame to not do all the things they dreamed about at the beginning of their year. At your next monthly meeting hand every au pair a piece of paper and have them write down 3 things that they want to do before their year ends. Then, have everyone put a date by which they commit to making that happen. If they feel comfortable, have them share their list with the group. Some au pairs will realize that there are others in the group who have the same goals as they do and they can team up to achieve them together. Now is the time to make those plans and to have that weekend trip, visit that museum, or go to that show that they had thought about for so long. With a little encouragement from you, they will be one step closer to making it happen.
It’s a common myth that hosting an au pair is only for wealthy families. That is simply not true! Our average weekly cost is just $340—and that’s per family, not per child. And Cultural Care is keeping their prices the same again for 2010—they have not changed since 2008. For an honest look at the financial implications of hosting an au pair, watch my video.
Susan Robinson is Au Pair Answer Mom, host mom to 9 au pairs and Cultural Care Au Pair staff member for 13 years. She is excited to share her expertise with parents considering the program as well as families already hosting au pairs.
Natalie Jordan is author of Nat Chat; a column that provides our LCCs with words of advice and suggestions on topics ranging from meeting ideas to communication techniques and general tricks of the customer service trade.
Larissa Feigl is a Cultural Care au pair from Germany who lives with her host parents and three host children in Massachusetts. She arrived in July 2008 and extended her year for 12 more months. Larissa is excited to share what she has learned so far about the her experience with other au pairs.
Stephanie Rueter Stephanie Rueter is our Creative Director. She started with Cultural Care Au Pair in 2000 and has been our resource for program news, au pair and host family stories and event updates since then. Stephanie is also very involved with the Kids First program.
Kids First is Cultural Care’s outreach program that supports children in need. Read about our partners and projects and hear from members of the Cultural Care community who share what they are doing to help children worldwide.
by Stephanie Rueter
