Au Pair in Your Home — Safety Starts With Screening

The blind spot when welcoming an au pair into your home

An au pair is not an ordinary employee. It is someone who lives in your house, who dresses your children in the morning, who sits at the dinner table each evening and who carries full responsibility for your family at the moments you are not there. That intimacy makes the au pair arrangement unique — and vulnerable. How well can you truly know someone from Brazil, South Africa or the Philippines, with a CV you cannot verify and references in a language you do not speak?

The Netherlands, and The Hague in particular as an international city with many expats and diplomatic families, has a strong au pair culture. Au pair agencies facilitate the match and arrange visas and basic documentation. But their screening is primarily aimed at administrative requirements: is the passport valid, are the visa conditions in order, has the candidate written a motivation letter? The actual background — previous experience with children, possible incidents, the reliability of stated references — is rarely independently checked. The Dutch Childcare Act sets requirements for registered childcare organisations, but the au pair arrangement largely falls outside its scope. There is no legal requirement for a Certificate of Conduct (VOG) for au pairs, and a VOG in any case says nothing about the criminal record in the country of origin.

Specific risks with au pairs that agencies do not cover

The risks with an au pair are different from those with a nanny who visits during the day and leaves each evening. An au pair has access to your entire home, knows your daily routine, knows where valuables are kept and often has access to payment methods for household expenses. The specific areas of concern in au pair screening include:

• International identity verification — is the passport genuine? Do the details match other documents?
• Background check in the country of origin — are there police records, outstanding cases or other signals that are invisible in the Dutch system?
• Verification of childcare experience — has the au pair genuinely cared for children before, or is the stated experience fabricated to qualify?
• Reference verification — are the stated referees genuine former host families, or family members and friends playing a role?
• Social media analysis — public profiles can reveal lifestyle, attitudes and behaviour relevant to the care of your children

Together, these elements provide a far more complete picture than what an au pair agency delivers as standard.

How SAJ Recherche approaches au pair screening

SAJ Recherche holds a licence under the Dutch Private Security and Investigation Services Act (Wpbr) and conducts all investigations in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We have experience with international background investigations and maintain a network through which we can verify documents and references abroad.

The investigation begins with the documents you have received from the au pair agency or directly from the candidate. We verify their authenticity and supplement the picture with our own research: digital source analysis, verification with educational institutions, and contact with stated referees in the country of origin. The result is a clear nanny screening report with our findings, delivered to you before the au pair moves in. All information is shared exclusively with you — discretion is central to everything we do.

Practical example from The Hague

A family in The Hague received a candidate from South America through a reputable au pair agency. The paperwork appeared to be in order and the video calls were warm and enthusiastic. Yet the parents felt an unease they could not quite place. They engaged SAJ Recherche for a background screening. Our investigation revealed that the candidate had provided a different date of birth than appeared on official documents, and that one of the two references could not be traced. The au pair agency had been unaware of these discrepancies. The parents decided to end the process with this candidate and ultimately chose an au pair whose background was fully verifiable.

Trust begins with knowing

Having an au pair screened is not a sign of distrust — it is a sign of responsible parenting. You are opening your home and your family to a stranger. You deserve the certainty that this person is who they claim to be.

Considering welcoming an au pair and want clarity beforehand? Get in touch with SAJ Recherche for a confidential consultation.