Mixed Experience with Hit-or-Miss Au Pair Agency My family has been using this agency since 2019, and the journey has been quite a rollercoaster. We've had the pleasure of welcoming three amazing au pairs into our home, two of whom joined us during a rematch phase. However, the experience has been inconsistent, to say the least. Before the pandemic hit, the au pairs underwent a thorough two-week, in-person onboarding process. Since then, this crucial step has been eliminated, and the impact has been glaring. There's been a noticeable decline in the understanding of the job and their responsibilities. When I inquired about reinstating the onboarding process, the response was dishearteningly casual: "the girls didn't like it." As a host, it's unsettling to have au pairs arrive at my doorstep unaware that they've signed up for a childcare role. Furthermore, the agency appears to operate with a one-person-deep approach to every task. When someone goes on vacation, communication becomes nonexistent. It's frustrating and leaves us feeling abandoned when we need assistance or clarification. On a brighter note, the Local Childcare Consultants (LCCs) have been a saving grace. Their dedication and effort in fostering relationships with both families and au pairs are commendable. It's evident that they invest the time and energy to ensure a positive experience for all parties involved.

Seamless Experience The experience has been so easy I would highly recommend their program. The Cultural Care team is so helpfu, communication is clear and professional. They follow up often, which is appreciated considering I’m very busy.

Cultural Care is a game changer Cultural Care was very thorough in the application process to get signed up to be a host family. They thought of almost every aspect to help families determine what they are looking for in an au pair. During the search process, even though having only 3 connections at a time seems like a small number, it does help to narrow your focus so you don't have a wide net of connections you can't keep control over. The matching specialists were helpful with their calls each week as responsiveness to calls/texts in between the weekly calls to answer questions.

Incredible Experience It is a great program with excellents process. I have lived many beautiful experience here in United States, my host family is so kind with me and I am working a lot for improve my language. I am happy and also I think it is a good way for get the best version of myself. I have also received frequent support from my LCC and the program

Disadvantages of being au pair Is a good opportunity to meet new places and people and get a bit of different cultures. In the other hand this program has so many things to fix, starting from the health care insurance which is not good or affordable at all, LCCs that are not enough trained to help so many people, life in the US is extremely expensive for us and even more when we have to pay taxes that takes a 10% of that small we make. Families pay yearly thousands to the agencies, but it would be fair us receiving at least a good part from that to make it part of our salary, because at the end of the day we are WORKING 45 hours per week.