Do you find yourself saying “I Need a Babysitter Now!” and don’t know where to start? Well, help for parents who need to find qualified babysitters quickly has arrived.

For years, we relied on family to watch our children when we were away, but when suddenly the situation changed, we needed to reevaluate our options and find babysitters that we could trust and do it quickly.

Luckily the internet has made this easier for parents like us who do not have the ability to rely on family or friends to care for their children. They help locate quailed caregivers in your local area to meet your needs.

These babysitter sites work similar to dating sites…basically finding good matches between parents and babysitters or nannies available in their local area. Some sites even let you search sitter descriptions by zip code before you even sign up.

In most cases, it is quick and easy to join, post a description of what you are looking for, look over babysitter responses, check their references, and even run needed background checks.

Some popular babysitting services are:

• Sittercity

• Nannies4hire

• Phone a Babysitter

• 4sitters

• BabySitters


With the help of these sites, you don’t need to rely on family or steal the neighbors’ sitter. You can quickly find a great babysitter right from your computer.

When you sign up for their services, these sites help you to find the perfect sitter for your specific babysitting needs and in record time. You can easily find a babysitter and run the necessary checks within a couple of days.

By: Beth Howland

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Most of the time people are afraid to hurt someone’s feeling. So even they see something wrong to a person, they don’t have the guts to confront them instead they just ignore it. What if that person is the nanny of your child, even if you see that your child reported you what his/her nanny is doing while you are away, you tend to ignore this because you are afraid to confront that person.

Nanny are very big help for working parents, they are the one who take good care of your children, while you are busy working. Of course if you have a nanny, you are giving your trust that she can take good care of your children.

But there are some cases that some nannies are abusive and we are afraid to tell them because we worry who will take care of your children if you go to work. But before this happens, you can prevent this by choosing the right nanny for your children.

Requiring nanny applicants some clearance and certification is a help in determining who to hire. Also, conducting background checks will help you identify which of the applicants have bad records such as criminal record, court record and record from previous employer.

It is a simple action but make a big impact on how to choose a nanny for your children. Remember, hiring a credible and trustworthy nanny is very important because it’s your child life that can be at stake. We don’t want to have abusive person to look for your children if you are away. So, conduct background checks in order to know more about the persons.

By: Maella Ayson

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What is the difference between using an Online Sitter Search Service and using a Professional Full-Service Nanny Agency?

In general, online Sitter Search Services are a ‘venue for communication’, not a referral agency. These websites are similar to the classifieds section of your local paper – but with more features and options. That means they have no control over the communications between parents and sitters. As a parent or care provider using any of these online services you take full responsibility for how you communicate and with whom.

Online Sitter-Search Services cannot provide assistance to you in your search for an appropriate care-provider or job. They are DIY (do-it-yourself) sites. A full service referral agecncy, on the other hand, for a significantly higher cost, may offer a high level of personal assistance to you in screening, background checking and selecting an appropriate match. Parents who make use of the online systems prefer to do all of their own interviewing and screening and assume all of the responsbility for performing background checks of their care provider candidates.

Online Sitter-Search systems are designed to help parents find sitters, nannies and other care providers – primarily students, most often between the ages of 18 and 30 years of age – who are already located locally to the family.

A Professional Nanny Agency works to place professional care providers. A professional or ‘career’ nanny is someone who is at least 18 years old, with years of prior experience, who has chosen to work in the field of in-home child care as their profession. They may be recruited from around the courner – or from across the nation. In the case of Au Pair agencies, the child care provider will be a foreign national student visitng the US as part of our cultural exchange program.

As a “do-it-yourself” environment, the online Sitter Search systems provide parents the ability to quickly locate and contact local sitters who have registered through the website. While often a great value for parents, these websites are not necessarily a substitute for the services of a Professional Nanny Referral Agency.

Nanny Agencies specialize in the placement of permanent or long-term child care providers. Professional Nanny Agencies do all of the hard work for you and can save you an enormous amount of time (and energy) by providing you with qualified candidates from whom you may choose a care provider that is right for your family.

If your needs call for the hiring of a permanent or long-term care provider, we encourage you to seek out the services of a reputable Professional Nanny Agency in your area. We cannot recommend or endorse the use of any Agency or “nanny website” that claims to work “nationally”. More often than not these enterprises do little more than pull names of care providers from other databases. A Professional Nanny Agency conducts all screening interviews IN PERSON and documents the candidate’s interviews and references, making them available for your review.

Visit the International Nanny Association (www.nanny.org) to locate a Professional Nanny Agency near you should your needs call for that type of personal service.

Nanny Agency fees vary widely, but most charge in the range of $800 to $1500 for a part-time permanent placement and $1200 to $2500 for a full-time placement.

A reputable agency will provide fully profiled and background checked candidates who are experienced and have been pre-screened to meet your specific needs. A thorough investigation of a candidates background and references can often be worth several hundred dollars alone. A good agency will not charge you any application fees until they have candidates that meet your requirements that you wish to interview… and they will not charge any placement fees until a candidate has accepted your job offer. A good agency will also stand behind their work with a replacement guarantee ranging anywhere from 60 days to a year.

Site Reviews: ——————- www.babysitter-jobs.com

Example web sites: ——————- www.SitterCafe.com www.sittercity.com www.enannysource.com www.4inhomecare.com

Agency Directories/Associations: ——————- International Nanny Asasociation – http://www.nanny.org Alliance of Professional Nanny Agencies – http://www.TheAPNA.org

By: Michael Gerard

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Were you aware that right now there isn’t any national or state regulations concerning babysitters or nannies? What it boils down to is that almost anyone can apply for a nanny position just by calling themselves a nanny by trade. How scary is that? This shows the importance of checking up on the people who are looking after your children. Parents needs to familiarize themselves with performing background checks and the steps involved.

Most people run into the problem of nannies providing their own references, and that leads to them choosing previous employers or just about anybody who would portray them positively. These are not exactly the best recommendation you can get. That’s why I recommend having background checks done on all potential nannies. Here are a few other steps you should take when performing a background check on a nanny:
What you want to do is get at least three references from your nanny and get in contact with every single one of those contacts. You want to find out as much information and details as possible. Try to ask questions about the length of their employment and the quality of her work. Ask for a reason why their business relationship ended and if there were any problems at all. Most importantly, find out if they would ever hire that nanny again. If the references your nanny provided don’t give you as much information as you would have originally liked, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for more references. You’ll run into this problem more commonly if you can’t get a hold of a reference on the nanny’s list. Once you found a nanny that meets most of your early qualifications, have her fill out an application as she would at any other job. Ask for information such as her date of birth, driver’s license number, any previous names, and names of the last five employers besides those earlier references. You should also get the names, addresses and phone numbers of close relatives, colleges or schools attended and dates as well as her last three home addresses. Basically, I would ask to see just about anything else you feel would be important. Before you run a background check, inform her you will be doing so and get her to sign a waiver authorizing that you can. This shouldn’t be a problem at all to a trustworthy nanny. It’s the ones who are hesitant on giving you all of this information that you need to be worried about. Once you get all of her information, you can start contacting everyone on the list to verify they are who she said they were. Start with relatives first then work your way to previous employers. Ask them if the information she provided you was indeed true and ask for their opinions on her. If you think you would feel more comfortable collecting as much information as possible, then by all means do so. There are a number of different background check services available online for you to use. I know a few families who even hired a personal investigator to look into a nanny’s background. They aren’t too expensive depending on how deep you want them to look into her background.

By: TL Kleban

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Hiring a babysitter or nanny comes with taking precautionary measures to make sure that you child or children are being properly taken care of. Every parent has that nightmare of a nanny that could abuse their children, even though they wish it not to happen. Taking the necessary steps to avoid the occurrence of such an unsightly event can mean the difference between life and death.

For those eight hours that you may be gone to work or a few hours away from your children makes a whole lot of difference in the world. Your childrens safety is at stake and at the hands of a stranger who you do not yet know enough about. How do you protect your children without feeling as if you are violating someone else’s privacy? What is most important? I would think that childrens security is more important. Make sure you learn more about your local laws in terms of installing a video camera in your home.

Even if you have thoroughly investigated your nanny, you should still have a nanny wireless camera installed in your home. You can go through the whole gamut of background checks, references and credit checks and still not know all you can about the nanny. The background check, references, and credit check will not reveal the child care providers personality or mood. You have to find that out the hard way or through the process of installing a hidden wireless camera especially if your children are very young and not able to explain themselves.

When your nanny leaves after you get home, you can put in the tape and watch the video to see what transpired while you were away from home. You may be shocked to see how the nanny spends the day or what she is doing to your child or children. What if you have a crazy nanny who drinks on the job or who shakes your child so hard because the child is crying? You would want to know, would you not?

A wireless hidden spy camera is the best way and most inexpensive method of having some extra eyes for you while you are gone. There are some day cares that have cameras installed and set up with the Internet so mothers especially can look at what their child is doing during the day. I think this is a brilliant idea. So why is it that homeowners who hire nannies to take care of their children are not doing the same thing?

Of course, they can. The nanny hidden spy cameras are manufactured and disguised in the form of stuffed animals, soda cans, wall clocks, radios, mirrors, vases, and even picture frames. This will give parents the peace of mind to know that they have something to rely on that will provide some type of protection for their children.

Hidden wireless cameras add safety and security to every home and business. It provides a security level that is necessary in this society that we live in. No more can people be totally trusted to perform their duties when you are absent. The nanny wireless hidden camera is a parents best friend.

By: Steven R Lane

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Some parents are turning to Sittercity online to find babysitters while other parents keep an eye on Craigslist postings. When looking at both options, here is what parents found.

Availability and Responsiveness

Craiglist seems to be hit-or-miss most of the time. Sometimes parents had good luck, but others claim that the competition for sitters in their area is so fierce that there is no incentive for these sitters to even return calls.

Sittercity, on the other hand, has a rating system that serves as a great incentive for sitters to respond to your requests (and at least return phone calls) even if they are no longer available for your particular needs.

Price

Some parents found that they could find a less expensive sitter on Craiglist. However, other parents seem to think it was more important to find a great babysitter for their family than a cheap one.

Safety

One of the biggest comforts of Sittercity is the availability of background checks that you do not get from a person on Craigslist. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Not every person is as nice as they seem when you meet them.

While running a elderly companion company that focused on providing in-home care for seniors, I received many great resumes from candidates who seemed kind and were considered for employment. However, after running a required background check, I found abuse allegations and one person who even had assaulted her very own mother! Do you think I now wanted to hire her to care for my older clients? No way!

Due to these issues, the assurance of the background checks serve as a great safety feature and a comfort for you. If you find a sitter on Craiglist, you may want to find a service to run a background check on them as well.

Number of Potential Sitters

The number of sitters listed varies greatly by location. Some large cities have a huge listing of sitters on Craigslist, while other areas have very few choices.

Most parents also found that they had a larger pool of potential candidates regularly listed through Sittercity that were available when they needed a sitter regardless of their location.

It seems both methods can find great babysitters, but depending on your area and needs, Sittercity might make the process a little easier.

By: Beth Howland

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Need a holiday babysitter and can’t find one? Don’t cancel your plans. There are many online sites to help you find a babysitter quickly…even in time for this weekend’s holiday bash. It has never been easier to find a great babysitter. These online sites connect parents and prospective sitters in no time.

This is an easy way to locate college students and other local sitters looking for babysitting jobs. They give you accessibility to talented, caring sitters right in your local area. Most sitters are over the age of 17, located all over the country, and are often skilled in areas like early childhood education, CPR, and first aid.

The online services charge fees for creating parent profiles to list jobs or for requesting specific information about a babysitters from their site. Some sites make it very quick and easy to sign up, post your babysitting needs, analyze responses, check references, and run background checks.

Some of the babysitting web sites include:


• 4sitters

• BabySitters

• Get-a-Sitter

• Phone a Babysitter


These online babysitting services are less pricey than using a babysitting agency and some let you search for sitters in your area before you ever have to sign up for their service. That way you can be sure that there are sitters in your area whom you would like to contact before spending a dime.

Although Sittercity has the largest selection of sitters, you may want to check out each site and pick the one that fits your needs best, but don’t take too long…you have a holiday party you will now be able to attend!

By: Beth Howland

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In today’s world background checks on other people have become a necessary part of our business and sometimes, personal life. What parent now days would not first check a person’s background before they hire a nanny for their children, for example? And what small business wouldn’t check the background of a person hired to manage the bank accounts of that business? Large businesses issue Requests For Proposals to choose a background check company that best suits their needs in terms of the services offered, information management, price and reliability. They then usually establish a long term relationship with that selected company. But what about the rest of us? Are we even allowed to “check up” on another person and how do we go about it?

SURPRISING TRUTH # 1: Anybody can do a background check on anybody, any time they want to. Now I know that I’ve lost some of you who now think that I am off my rocker because you know that there are all sorts of forms that you have to sign with all kinds of legal warnings with criminal penalties and such, but I’ll say it again. “ANYBODY CAN DO A BACKGROUND CHECK ON ANYONE, ANY TIME THEY FEEL LIKE IT.” Because I want you to read this whole article, I am not going to explain those statements until further into the article.

SURPRISING TRUTH # 2: There is no instant national database of all criminal records that you can access. Now I know that you are sure that I am crazy. “Why just last night on Law & Order they got the bad guy’s record . . .” There, you are talking about NCIC, the National Crime Information Center or otherwise known as the FBI files. While the FBI maintains the best and most accurate records, unfortunately, you can’t get them, unless of course you are a federally insured bank, a defense department contractor, a nuclear power plant, a branch of the government itself or some other such entity. A surprising amount of otherwise intelligent people think that there are giant government databases with information on everyone including their criminal history, job history, credit files an even what books they check out of the library and what videos they rent. If that were true, why does it take the government itself four months and $2400 to conduct its own background checks? Don’t believe me? Look here: http://www.opm.gov/extra/investigate/FIN-2002/fin02-01Attach1.asp

SURPRISING TRUTH # 3: There is a big, big difference between everywhere and anywhere. These database companies advertise that they search everywhere, or at least that’s what they want you to believe. Using the word Nationwide is designed to make you think that they check everywhere. The question then becomes, “If you don’t check everywhere, what do you check?” The answer is that you should check anywhere a person has lived or worked. Does it really help to check a database of Orange County, California if the person has always lived and worked in Orange County, Florida or vice versa?

So if there’s no such thing as an instant nationwide database what are these companies selling? First let me tell you what these databases are good for and then I’ll tell you why they are dangerous. In some states of the USA their REAL criminal records are available in some kind of publicly accessible form. It may be on the internet and it may require a subscription or acknowledgement of permissible purpose for its use, but it is available. Texas is a good example of this. For a small fee you can go online and access the REAL criminal records of the state of Texas. Florida, Minnesota and Virginia are other examples of where you can get via these database services what I call “REAL” records. The problem is that these database companies don’t tell the consumer (you) that is most cases and in most areas of the country you are getting either nothing or marginal information at best.

Here’s why. The companies that collect and sell these database records, and the hundreds of companies that re-sell this information do not emphasize the weakness of their systems. This is why they emphasize the words “instant” and “nationwide” in their promotions. Everyone wants cheap and instant as opposed to slow and expensive, don’t they? Can you imagine a website that advertises “Slow And Expensive Limited Area Background Checks.” But, in fact, some areas of the country, like the Carolinas and most of California require exactly that, records that must be searched in person at each local county courthouse.

These companies get records where they can get them for free; usually from a state’s Department of Corrections, which means you are only getting info on a person if he/she has been convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison. When most people think of a criminal history background check they think of all arrests and convictions; both misdemeanors and felonies and the court disposition, guilty or not guilty and the sentence. As you can see, if you are getting only felony convictions, you are getting only a small piece of the pie. For example; a person could be arrested a couple of times for having drug paraphernalia or a small amount of drugs in his or her possession. If the records you are getting only include felony convictions, you would have no record of that person’s drug abuse.

The other problem that these Instant Nationwide background checks have is that in many areas of the country they get nothing at all because the states or the county superior courts or district courts don’t furnish them with free records. Here is another example: Suppose you are a parent in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boston, Atlanta or New Orleans (just to name a few) and you want to do a criminal background check. You go online and type in “background check” in Yahoo or Google and right away you see the ads for the “Instant Nationwide” background checks. You choose one of the websites that offers instant records, you pay your $19.95 or $49.95 and you put in the information on the person you want checked. Instantly the website tells you that there is no record found based on the info that you have provided. You feel great! You go ahead and tell the nanny that she can start tomorrow because she has passed the background check. Here comes the big kick in the gut. . . What the website didn’t tell you is that their database records don’t search any of those areas at all. You just paid $19.95 or $49.95 and got NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NADA. Disclosure: Actually the proceeding sentence is not 100% true. In Nevada and Louisiana the databases do search currently incarcerated prisoners in their respective prison systems. So if your potential nanny is in prison right now then it would tell you that he/she is in prison, but I guess you would already know that.

Now to explain the # 1 Surprising Truth: I’ll say it again: Anyone can check anyone, anytime. If you are so inclined, you can check the criminal or civil record (or lack thereof) of your daughter’s boyfriend (I do that on a regular basis) your crazy neighbor next door, your business partner, your doctor, your ex-husband, your mayor or even any of the presidential candidates. In fact, you don’t even have to be a citizen of the USA to get these records. You can walk into the Superior Court (District Court in some states) clerk’s office, in the jurisdiction where that person lives/lived, go up to the counter, fill out a slip of paper, hand it to the clerk and wait for the results. Remember that you will only get the records from that county, i.e., if a person lived in multiple counties you would have to check each of them. The subject of your search could be an axe murderer from the next county over, but your county court clerk would not have a record of it.

OK, now you’ve got the information, what do you do with it? This is the area where the law is concerned; what you do with the information! If you use this information to discriminate against a person, deny them employment, housing or entrance to a school, etc. then you are violating the law and opening yourself to big time liabilities and possible lawsuits. This is what all of the consent forms with warnings are all about. It’s not the getting of the information that the laws are concerned with but the use of it.

In summary, read the fine print and ask questions to get the real records you want.



By: Kit Fremin

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