Going to Turin for 7 weeks. Will be working for the Winter Olympics, June-July. We have a 5 and 6 year old. Would like to have a nanny to stay and travel with us. Any suggestions?

I have a 21 year old daughter who is currently studying abroad in Rome and is an Italian major. She finishes her studies in late May and is looking to stay on into the summer to work somewhere in Italy. She is the oldest of 6 children and has spent several summers babysitting for children full-time.
If you are interested, please contact me and I will talk to her and see what she thinks.

I'm not sure how it works regarding private emails as I am not a premium member.

If you are not a premium member, and cannot do private messaging, then you must make your email address display in your profile if you want people to contact you. Click GO > MY SPACE > PROFILE and there is an option to display an email address.

Thanks, Pauline. Appreciate the help!

Thanks Irb and Pauline,
Irb,
Your daughter sounds like a perfect fit.I will go to my profile and add my email address if that's how I'm suppose to do it. I am new to slow travel and spent the last few days reading endlessly all the great info. We live in Atlanta and this will be our first trip to Italy.After reading all the great reviews I now can't decide where we want to spend our travel days. Italy offers so many great choices!

Hi! Have you already found a nanny for your kids? I'm looking for a job as a nanny for English speaking children (I'm from Finland) in Italy/UK London area for the summer 2005 (mid June till the end of August for example?).

I'm 21 years old educational science student with a lot of experience of working with children and I have also been working in Italy for 2 seasons too. If you haven't found anyone special yet, I hope you could contact me as soon as possible and we could have a bit more deep talk. Ciao!

Bondi,

After a nightmare experience with a nanny, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to do a police and drug check of your candidates. We did a careful reference check and several interviews, which were all good. Our nanny turned out to have multiple aliases and a variety of criminal charges. She also turned out to be using heroin when she attempted to rob a convienence store using our car on her weekend off. We only found this out when the police came to the house. I cannot tell you the anguish we went through. This happened over 20 years ago and I am still plagued by it. Please be careful!

Janetz
Thanks for the warning. I'm so sorry that happened to you. It is making me think twice.

Another option is to bring someone with you from Atlanta. Last year when we were there for several weeks, we did just that (from San Diego) and it worked well. The advantage of getting someone in Italy, though, would be if he/she spoke Italian and so the kids could begin to learn a second language. Having brought someone with us means that we now have someone here who knows our boy well and who enjoys doing things with him.

Janetz, that's a horrible thing that happened to you, I'm sorry to hear about it. I agree that you have to be really careful when hiring people that you dont know, especially for such a personal job. At the same time though, you do have to be able to put trust in other people.

As Jane said, taking someone you know from Atlanta would probably be the best option (perhaps a co-worker has a son/daughter that would want to do it?) - If you dont have anyone you know who would be able to do it, I too would be interested in the job. Although i dont have any "experience" with kids, I do love them, and have a passion for Italy (plus I'm defiantly NOT a drug adict )

Whatever you end up doing, I hope you find someone who is able to help make it a truely memorable experience for both you and your kids, and are able to avoid the nightmares that Janetz went through.

Lori

Thanks for the posts, Jane,I have enyoyed your website! My husband is trying to find someone through the company he is working for. With the high season rates it is not cost effective to bring someone with us.

I agree that there is a very big advantage to having someone who is fluent in the language. I wouldn't give up on the idea of someone like Irbs daughter. As you said, the cost of airfare to bring someone with you is pretty steep.
I'm guessing that there are a lot of college aged students doing study abroad who would jump at the chance of this kind of summer job.
Perhaps you could contact a few of the universities that have international campuses in Italy.
In fact, the University of Georgia has a study abroad program in Cortona. http://www.visart.uga.edu/cortona/html

Thanks Deb,
That is a great tip I will pursue the UGA thing! I appreciate your other message as well.

I think Deborah's idea is great - and I'd encourage you to pursue other university programs as well - there are literally hundreds of US colleges/universities with programs in Italy (Rome, Florence, Bologna, Siena, etc.). The more you contact, the better your chances of finding the right person for your family.

That's a great idea Deb. Be careful though, there can be a couple issues with getting an american student who is currently studying there to do it.

First, not all study abroad programs require you to get a student visa, and a PdiS, so the students 3 months as allowed on a the passport might be expireing right at the end of their program.

Second, (as in my own experience) if the student does have a study visa, and recieved a Pdis, the PdiS may expire a few days after the program is over - in which case they would have to leave the schengen (sp?) states, and re-enter on their passport inorder to stay any longer. (I left 3 days after my PdiS expired, and they gave me a lot of hassel about it - I played stupid and pretended not to speak Italian, just kept saying that my professor said it was okay, and after about 20 min they let me go - still, not recommended, especially if you are looking for someone to stay with you for several weeks).

Not to say that it can't be done this way, but make sure that the student still has the proper paperwork to stay in the country. Just because their student visa is for a year, doesn't mean they can stay for a year if their PdiS is for a shorter amount of time.

Lori

Hi,
I too am in the process of figuring out our summer situation. I have contacted http://www.euroma.info/ita/cerca.htm. For a summer au pair they charge 180 euros agency fee and you pay a very small fee per month for 5-8 hours a day. They supposedly do a background check to put your mind at ease. You can request someone with whatever mother tongue suits you. An au pair is not a nanny though, so it depends exactly what you're looking for. At the moment I'm debating what to do myself.
Good luck,
Marji

Hey ellens, what do you mean by US colleges/universities in Italy? I was trying to find a place from Italy to study educational science and I tought I contacted every university in Italy (yes!) + some job agencies etc. and they all told me there's no possibility of studying in Italy in English more than some IT/business studies. So please, could you tell me a bit more about those schools you mentioned (I already tried google but didn't found but maybe I just can not search in right words...). Thanks!

Actually, what I said was "programs" offered in Italy by American colleges and universities. Also, I didn't mean to imply that these courses are taught in English, usually they are not.

Have you looked into John Cabot University in Rome?

bondi -- I am bringing along a nanny with us for our trip this August. I met her in my Italian class in NYC. She is a kindergarten teacher, so she has summers off AND she had wonderful references AND, she speaks a little italian (a bonus!)

I was lucky to have met her, but before I had, I considered contacting an agency here in the U.S. which specializes in helping families traveling to Italy -- Ciao Bambino (ciaobambino.com.) I don't have any experience with them, but their website mentions nannies/childcare providers among other services.

Thanks Amy B. I'll look into that. Have a great trip.