The Au Pair & Nanny's Guide: To Working Abroad

by Susan Griffith, Sharon Legg

The book for everyone looking for short or long-term work abroad as a nanny, au pair, or mothers' help, for which there is always a great demand as so many mothers now go out to work. It includes details of the thousands of short and long term vacancies to be found around the world, and is illustrated with first-hand accounts from people who have worked with families abroad to give a taste of what au pair and nanny work is actually like.

Information given
>What training and experience are needed
>The duties and rewards of the work
>The different ways of finding a job
>Preparation, including getting a contract, insurance, and what to take
>The problems you may come across and how to cope with them
>How to make the best use of your leisure time by creating a social life for yourself and learning the language

The Au Pair & Nanny's Guide to Working Abroad also includes a country guide section that covers the opportunities in twenty-five countries around the world

>Information on necessary visas and work permits
>The wages or pocket money you can expect to receive
>The advantages and disadvantages of working in different countries
>Whether au pairs and nannies will need private health insurance
>Useful addresses for finding work in specific countries

In addition the book includes a directory of nearly 300 au pair and nanny agencies giving details of how long they have operated for, the countries and types of work in which they specialize, the fees they charge, and who to apply to.

Genres: Travel

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 1989

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Please see: Susan Griffith

Susan Griffith is a freelance editor and writer who has specialized for more than 25 years in writing books and articles about travel, especially working and volunteering abroad. The first edition of her best known book Work Your Way Around the World was researched in 1982 mainly by listening attentively to the stories of travelers met abroad and by interviewing people summoned to the Nag’s Head (the pub behind her publisher’s office in Oxford). At that time she had plenty of personal experience of working abroad since she had left her native Canada after doing a degree in English at the University of Toronto to study at Oxford and then decided to stay on working in England.

In the early 1980s so few guidebooks about funding yourself on the road were available that travelers were grateful for any scrap of information and encouragement. The world of travel has changed dramatically since then. Working abroad has become such a mainstream idea that it has given rise to scores of web sites; student travel agencies have specialist working abroad departments and a huge infrastructure has developed for those who want to combine work and travel. Work Your Way has grown up with the travel industry and now takes account of all the shortcuts to fixing up work abroad that now exist. Personally updated every other year since its beginnings, it is now an acknowledged classic in the field. Other titles which Susan has written and regularly updates include Teaching English Abroad which gives a comprehensive account of that booming business, Taking a Gap Year, The Au Pair & Nanny's Guide to Working Abroad, and Gap Years for Grown Ups. She has also been a contributing editor to Transitions Abroad since the early days of its publication and contributes occasional articles to the travel pages of The Independent, a British daily newspaper. Her consistent aim has been to make her writing as concrete and up-to-the-minute as possible, to cut out vague generalities and meaningless waffle.

Susan has traveled relentlessly both for work and pleasure, and has spent substantial periods of time on her own in the Indian Subcontinent and the Antipodes including Papua New Guinea. She also travels widely with her family including her partner, who is the Oxford Professor of Latin and is therefore interested in travel to ancient sites around the Mediterranean. Now based in Cambridge, she is hoping that her twin sons who have hit adolescence will have imbibed a love of travel since she is all the more convinced that a spell of independent travel in wild and woolly places is a good and necessary thing.