After Ruth and Derek Phillips’ second son, Peyton, was born, the Joliet couple had to make some difficult child-care decisions.

Peyton had spent his first months in Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, so his immune system needed time to build up strength. When Ruth Phillips had to return to work, she didn’t think a traditional day care center would be a good fit for her family.

The best option would be for someone to care for the children in her home, but finding the right person with the right skills wasn’t that easy, she said.
That’s when Phillips decided to look into Au Pair in America. Neighbors had used the program and highly recommended it.

Au Pair in America has placed more than 43,000 young women with American families annually since 1986, said Dee Block, the community counselor who deals with all of the au pairs in the southern Chicago metropolitan area, which includes most of the Southland. Block said there are about 280 au pairs in the grater Chicago area, including Orland Park, Tinley Park, Oak Lawn, Flossmoor, Frankfort, Joliet, Mokena, New Lenox, and the Beverly community in Chicago.

Block said au pairs are carefully screened young adults, ages 18 to 26, who are trained to care for children in what is described as a mutually rewarding cultural exchange experience. The program provides families with flexible, reliable, culturally enriching and affordable child care.

The weekly average cost is $265, which includes the au pair’s pocket money, insurance, orientation, flight and local support. Candidates are recruited form Eastern and Western Europe, South Africa, South and Central America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Asia. Brazil is the third largest source of au pairs behind Germany and South Africa, Block said.

Ruth and Derek won’t be surprised if their almost 2-year-old son Peyton and their 4-year-old son Hayden greet people with a hearty “G’day.” That’s just how the Phillipses’ Aussie au pair Ria Garwood greets everyone.

The au pair program is a relief for Ruth Phillips. It removed all of her worries that Peyton might catch a cold or worse at a baby sitter’s house or day care center. Garwood gets the boys fed and dressed in the morning, watches them during the day and, best all, cleans up their toys at the end of the day.

“I don’t stress about the same things any more,” Phillips said.

Application process

Much of the worry about finding the right person is taken away in the placement process. Both the family and would-be au pair fill out an extensive application, Block said.

Families are asked to rank what’s most important for them in areas such as hobbies and interests, religious background, driving experience, dietary considerations and smoking preference, she said. Then, a computer determines the best fits. Would-be au pairs also write an essay explaining why they want to participate in the program, Block said.

This process helps families in narrowing down their final picks. After getting to that stage, families talk to the young applicants by phone. “There were several where we really like their essays, but when we talked to the girls, we realized they would not be a match,” Phillips said.
When she telephoned Garwood, she immediately knew the Australian was the right person.
“We talked for four hours,” Phillips said.

Garwood, who has been with the Phillips family for only a couple of months, is their third au pair. Their first became extremely homesick and returned to Romania, and the second served in the interim until Garwood arrived.

Homesickness is something many of the girls struggle with because they are on their own for the first time and thousands of miles away form home. South African Monique Caroline, who’s been in the United States for only seven months, said the first three months were the most difficult.

She spent her first few months as an au pair in the Detroit area and was just recently placed in a home in Joliet.

In addition to missing her family, she misses the ocean and the beach near her home in Cape Town. To help ease the homesickness, Caroline calls her family at least once a week and concentrates her energies on her au pair duties and the Web technology classes she’s taking.

Education component

Block said education is a critical element of the au pair program. To maintain the J-1 Visitor Exchange Visa issued by the U.S. Department of State, au pairs must enroll in at least six hours of college credit classes or 80 lifelong learning hours in classes such as cooking, photography, pottery or jewelry-making classes at a local community college. Caroline eventually wants to pursue a career in Web technology. Since classes are not available to her in South Africa, she’s concentrating her lessons her in that field. She’s finishing up a class on-line.

Steffie Lehnert, who’s staying with a Mokena family, got a bit of a shock when she took a U.S. history course. It was a bit more extensive than what she was used to in Germany.

“We spent forever learning about all the Indian tribes. I didn’t realize that there were that many different Indians,” Laehnert said.

Garwood, who has a bachelor’s degree in education, will go the lifelong learning route.

J-1 visas allow an au pair to stay with a family in the United States for 12 months and travel in America for another month. For the first time, as part of a pilot program, the State Department will allow au pairs an extended stay of 12 more months. After that, they must return home.

That time extension is something appealing to Mayuree Jenchiwchan, an au pair for a family in New Lenox. Although she has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from a university in her native Thailand, she wants to further her studies and is looking to be re-matched with a family in the Dallas area, where she can attend classes at a Texas A & M satellite facility.

Lehnert, on the other hand will head back to Germany to pursue a career as a flight attendant.

“I love my family, but I’m ready to move on,” she said. Derek Phillips said the only drawback to hosting an au pair is adjusting with a new person in the house. But that’s minor compared to the child care service and the cultural exchange. “I find it interesting to hear their perspective of us and what is happening in the world,” he said.

Most families choose the au pair program because both parents work. But that is not always the case, Block said. In one area family, the father works as a university professor and the stay-at-home mom has numerous outside interests. That family chose an au pair for the cultural exchange as well as for the child care it would provide.

For more information about Au Pair in America or for a free brochure, call (800) 928-7247, e-mail aramirez@aifs.com or go to http://www.aupairinamerica.com.