Will au pairs replace caregivers?

Will au pairs replace caregivers?

By Beatrice Paez

TORONTO – Many families are tilting in a new direction in their search for household care, and are turning to caregiver agencies to build another pipeline. Hiring au pairs instead of full-time live-in caregivers, a largely European concept, is unexplored territory in Canada, but that is about to change, says Manuela Gruber Hersch, President of the Association of Caregiver and Nanny Agencies Canada.

“Canadian families are fed up to no end with the live-in caregiver program,” says Gruber Hersch to The Philippine Reporter. “Hiring a live-in caregiver has become so complicated, risky, and expensive.”

An au pair program offers a quick and inexpensive solution for families in a bind, who can’t afford to wait for months to get through the red tape. It’s a faster track, with a built-in route, au pairs can arrive through the working holiday visa, which takes up to 14 weeks to process, compared to the 15 to 17 months it may take for LCP candidates.

The number of families applying to the government’s live-in caregiver program (LCP) has been plummeting in recent years. Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s statistics reveal that in 2008 about 11,222 applications were processed, compared to only 5,603 in 2011.
The dip is reflective of families’ dissatisfaction with the caregiver program, as it stands, rather than a lack of demand for child-care, says Gruber Hersch, who first came to Canada as a caregiver, but is now seeing the other perspective.

New safeguards and benefits for live-in caregivers went into effect in April 2010 to curb the incidence of abuse and to address the challenges they faced. Under the modified system, caregivers are allotted more time to complete their employment obligations in order to qualify for permanent residence, giving them four years instead of three.

Among other changes, employers are required to foot the bill for the airfare, recruitment fees, private medical insurance and workplace safety insurance. These changes in particular, have not been well received by families, because there is no guarantee that the arrangements will last in the long-term, says Gruber Hersch.

She proposes that the upfront fees that families pay should only be released once the caregiver starts working and both parties are fully committed to making the setup work.

Her agency has already placed several au pairs with families, and is looking to recruit more. Under this scheme, au pairs can be drawn from 29 countries Canada has established bilateral youth mobility agreements with, and are permitted to explore and work in the country for up to 12 months.

The au pair program would be styled as a cultural exchange program, where it would be up to the families to adjust to the worker’s schedule on occasion.

Opening up this avenue will have impact on the LCP, especially if the government doesn’t do more to engage in consultation with Canadian families to respond to their concerns, says Gruber Hersch. “I think what we’ll see is some families will adjust their needs to accommodate an au pair” And as for the future of the LCP, “The government would have to decide once and for all, if it wants to keep the program.”

Terry Olayta, the founder of the First Ontario Alliance of Caregivers, isn’t too worried about the fate of the LCP and is more curious about how the au pair program will evolve in comparison to its counterpart, and whether it will be less open to abuse.

Olayta says, ultimately, an au pair can’t compensate for the responsibilities a caregiver is expected to take on, such as the everyday housework of cooking and cleaning.

Au pairs can’t provide the stability and continuity that children need, because they are contracted for a short period of time, and often the kids develop an attachment to their nannies, adds Olayta.

Gruber Hersch admits that the au pair route is more suited for families with older children, because au pairs have less experience and are generally younger, as the program would attract people of the ages 18 to 35. Canada also has an ageing population to think about, that the LCP is designed to respond to.

Though not all match-ups work out under the LCP, and money is invested in bringing overseas caregivers to Canada, the social costs borne by nannies are far greater than the monetary costs incurred by the employers, says Olayta.

Overseas caregivers tolerate the long separation from their own families for the chance to qualify for permanent residency to bring them over, which they can apply for after working under the program for at least 24 months or 3,900 hours.

Olayta, who once worked as a caregiver but now runs an organization that provides support to caregivers in distress, says that because their prospects of building a life in Canada hinge on their completion of the program, even those who experience abuse endure it and are not always quick to find a way out.

“I was one of the lucky ones to have a good relationship,” Olayta says.