If you have (or are considering hiring) a nanny or other household employee, this is one topic we hope you’ll take a few minutes to read. Below, we share an emotional, real-world story from one of our customers about why background checks are SO IMPORTANT to ensuring your family is safe.
Roughly 75% of parents do not run background checks on their nanny. Many of these parents rely solely on personal recommendations or “word of mouth” when looking for their next nanny.
In this article, we’ll show you why relying strictly on recommendations from friends or neighbors when looking for your next nanny, sitter or household employee can be a recipe for disaster.
You can check out our background check packages by clicking here.
A quick note: this story does get emotional. The nanny discussed here is not a member of the Nanny Parent Connection community.
Read on, and we hope that you never skip the background check!
If you aren’t currently a member of our community, we’d love to have you join. Nannies can join our community totally FREE!
Here is one customer’s story, in her own words.
This topic is very important in the real world, and it’s a clear example of why you should not skip the background check.
We know that about 75%, maybe even more, of parents decide to go off of references alone when vetting a nanny candidate. But we want to share this person’s story, which is a real-world example of why you should never skip the background check.
This was a customer of ours who had ordered a background check, and when the report finished running, the results were shocking. Here is Christine’s interview, where she tells in her own words what happened with her nanny candidate, what concerning information came back about this nanny’s background, and how that helped her decide not to work with that nanny in order to keep her family safe.
Q: So Christine, thank you so much for being here today. We appreciate you coming on and telling your story.
Christine: Alright! Thank you for having me.
Q: Of course. So tell us a little bit about finding your nanny candidate and arriving at that decision to run a background check on her, please.
Christine: Sure, yes. So I live in a pretty small little rural area so word of mouth is kind of the way to go. And I found our nanny by word of mouth. I had two friends who saw that she was advertising for nanny work and so I pursued, calling her, and we had her over to our house and our initial impressions were that she was wonderful. My mother was also present, and so we had the family approval also everybody loved her.
She did mention during the interview that she had a background check, she had previously worked for some nanny agencies. I think she worded it like, “I have a clear background check” or something along those lines, so I really wasn’t concerned. My son seemed to love her and it wasn’t until she came back over for another interview and I started to have some kind of like maternal red flags waving and that’s why I decided to run a background check. I told her that I would like to do that and she kind of started to divulge some info and recommended that I call some of her previous clients and so I called some families. Everybody had glowing reviews, everyone had wonderful things to say about her and when I asked the families whether they had run a background check, none of them had. I think I called three or four different families and nobody had to run a background check. As you can imagine, it’s very overwhelming as a parent when you’re trying to understand how nanny background checks work.
A simple, affordable background check system can make a real difference for parents here. Many parents think they need to spend $300.00 on a background check to get a good one, and that’s just not the case. Child care is hard enough without having to untangle things like background checks. Parents need background checks that are straightforward and affordable.
Christine: So the one thing I liked about Nanny Parent Connection is that it’s fostered and tailored to families and people that are going to have individuals working in their homes and I think that that’s important for people to understand that there are thousands of agencies that run background checks. Some of them seem like they’re free, it just is very overwhelming. But if you look at the mission of Nanny Parent Connection, it is to make sure that the people that you have in your home are going to provide good care and they’re going to be safe for your family to be around. And I can just say that they made the process extremely easy. As you can imagine as a parent when you’re trying to figure out who’s going to take care of your child. For me, it was like the biggest decision of my life. And to go through that, knowing that there is a company that’s kind of has your back and making it easy and stress-free was helpful for me, knowing that I could call someone if I had questions, knowing that there was a support line for the nanny to call if she had problems. All of these things made that process extremely easy and I have nothing but great words to say about it.
It is nice to have somebody there to call, because just untangling a completed report can be confusing. The shorthand and abbreviations sometimes read like a foreign language, so being able to reach someone who knows the ins and outs of everything is helpful.
Q: So you decided to run the background check. What did you learn when you ran it?
Christine: In the process of deciding to run the background check, our candidate had divulged a couple of tidbits of information relating to her history with drinking and driving. And so I had a suspicion that there would be some charges on her record and I wasn’t going to be super alarmed to see maybe some drinking and driving, maybe some traffic violations, etc!
But what we found was that she had a child abuse charge on her record.
You can imagine as a mother when you are about to invite someone into your home knowing that they have something like that in their background is just really alarming. Honestly, if it had not been for Nanny Parent Connection, I don’t think we would have known, and I wouldn’t have had the ability to tell her ”no”, we can’t hire you because we wouldn’t have any information.
It was alarming and so I can’t say enough about the importance of getting background checks.
It’s very important even when people say they have one, even when the references they’re great. Because while they might be great people, I think that every parent should have the ability to make that decision themselves. Of course, people make mistakes in their lives, but it needs to be in your hands, the decision of who’s gonna watch your child.
There’s a difference between a speeding ticket on someone’s driving record and a child abuse charge. That’s the kind of thing you never want to encounter, and you never would have seen it without running a background check. So many people go on recommendations, and we’ve all been in a pinch where it feels like there’s no time to run a background check or call the references. But at what cost? Is it just taking a day off work, or is it potentially putting your child in harm’s way? It is important.
Just knowing that information, and knowing that a simple step like running a background check helped you avoid potentially putting your child in harm’s way, is huge. You can’t put a price tag on that. That’s every parent’s worst nightmare, to learn that your provider has that kind of background.
Trust your instincts. They are the combination of your life experiences, and they’re there for a reason.
We’re so glad to hear that you made that decision and took that step. Hopefully you’ve landed with a good nanny now. We can’t stress enough the importance of not skipping that step. So many parents do, and this story highlights that it is simple, easy, and fast, and you never know what you could possibly turn up.
It is rare that a situation comes back with something that’s a total game-changer like this one. But background checks turn up speeding tickets and recent accidents all the time. You just never know, even something like texting while driving.
Technically someone may have a clear background check or a clean driving record because they didn’t have an accident. But a report at least gives you the opportunity to have a conversation with your nanny about expectations, such as texting and driving while they’re working.
A personal recommendation carries a lot of weight, especially in a small town. So the fact that this person was recommended by acquaintances carried significant weight.
Q: Well, thank you so much, Christine. We appreciate your time and thank you for sharing your story. We hope other parents see this and make the choice to not skip that very important step.
Thank you. I appreciate it and please reach out if you need anything else okay?
Christine: Thank you so much for having me.
And that’s Christine’s story.
As you can understand now, it’s important to not skip the background check.