Please be VERY careful when employing a nanny

Flip that is such a scary story I got cold shivers.

I suppose as RM says it is a fact of life when you invite someone new into your home who you have known for 2 days or 2 years - you can never know someone 100%!
Look at that story about Isabella who was kidnapped by a family friend who the mother trusted enought to let her sleep over at.
We just have to look after and protect our LO's as best we can!!!!!!

Je.s.us

Very scarey. There are no words to try to make this better, that is just a shocking situation.

I strongly suggest using an agency, asking them to check references, then you choose two yourself and call.

Hire someone and have them there on a trial for at least two weekends while you are there - so you can try to get a sense of them.

Ideally in the first week, have someone there with them that you know i.e. your MIL, or a friend or someone, who can also give you a sense of how they are.

Definitely have an ID, definitely do a police check - can be done with thier written consent by any police station. (however this will only show a previous history of convictions and is not going to predict future behaviour.)

At the end of the day, we do leave ourselves open when we invite anyone new into our homes.

Fortunately these stories are the minority, but they are good to know they exist, so the rest of us can be more alert.

Thanks for reminding us that things can go horribly wrong, and we need to be on the look out/ever vigilant.

Im scared , what i am i going to do now , i have the same drama queen nanny who worked for the past two weeks and show true colours in less that two weeks .

i am desperately searching for new one and i always dont check their id where they come from and reference or anything . how can i be so stupid .

i am wise now thanks for the info from now on i check references ,id copy or passport copys.

scary.

Hi ladies

I don't want to scare anyone, but we need to be aware of the crazy things happening out there.

Was on the news, etc. so some of you may have heard:

A friend of my sister employed a new nanny 2 weeks ago to take care of her 2 year old for the full day and her 3.5 year old from 13:30 every afternoon and her 5 year old from about 16:00 each day. She employed her after her previous nanny left for better prospects and this new lady was recommended by previous nanny and all references were checked. She was a live-in nanny.

Shortly after 13:00 yesterday, the husband got a call from the 3.5 year old's school to say that no-one was at home when they tried to drop her. He rushed home to find the house locked up and no sign of the nanny or the 2 year old little girl anywhere.

After a very traumatic 6 hour search, they got a call from a male to say that he had the child at the Manenberg train station. He father, accompanied by the police picked her up there. The man and his wife said that they spotted the nanny in a drunken state, half passed out with the child sitting on the ground next to her. They could immediately tell that it was not her child and asked her where she was going with this child. She told them to take the child and gave them the parents home number.

They took her straight to the district surgeon for a check -up and she appears to be unharmed but is unresponsive to even her parents and screamed through the night. She was most likely in the sun all day without anything to drink or eat because she is slightly dehydrated. She is back at the doctor this morning and the entire family is going for trauma counselling.

I am sure you can only imagine the things that went through that mothers mind in that 6+ hours that we were searching for her.

This could have been so much worse and when it happens to someone that you know so well, it really hits home.