The references that a nanny candidate provides are a great resource for insight into how that nanny might fit your family’s unique personality and needs. While contacting references can be time-consuming, it’s a completely necessary step in the process of hiring a new nanny.

Are you taking your nanny along on your vacation this year? Thinking about how nice it would be to have an extra pair of hands and some couple time with your partner? Taking your nanny on your family vacation can be an awesome experience or a miserable one - the difference is in the planning and attention to details.

The keys to successfully vacationing with your nanny:

What level of care can you expect from a senior home caregiver? Well, every family’s needs are unique, so the services you can expect in a typical day from your senior caregiver will be customized to what you requested during your initial assessment with a senior caregiver. Below is a broad list of services you can expect from a general senior home caregiver.

Finding a senior home care agency that meets the caregiver’s needs and the senior’s needs can require some research, but finding the agency that fits your whole family’s needs is worth it. While screening senior home care agencies, make sure to ask the following questions:

Finding the perfect nanny can feel like finding a needle in a haystack, which makes it all the more important that you hang on to her once you find her! HomeWork Solutions wants your nanny experience to be as smooth as possible, so we’ve outlined nine of our favorite suggestions to establish a strong relationship with your nanny.

Think you are saving money by taking time off of work to care for your elderly relative? A new study by Rand Corporation, one of the leading independent health policy research programs, investigated the cost of informal caregiving of the elderly by friends and relatives. The cost is calculated by the valuing the hours family caregivers give up in order to provide care (in the US, this comes to 30 billion hours annually).

Many nannies work a series of short term assignments throughout the year. These can range from several days to several months. Examples include nannies that cover for a full time nanny's vacation, step in to help when the regular family caregiver is ill or unavailable, or to fill in between full time nannies when the family is recruiting.

Summer is fast approaching, which means many of us are counting down the seconds till our much-needed holidays in the sun. For nannies, though, the summer can be the most stressful time of the year.  It’s simple, really: the benefits of your full-time job that allow you to take paid time off (whether sick leave, personal days, or paid vacation) cannot be taken for granted by a nanny.

As a full-time non-exempt employee of the family, a nanny should be paid for any regularly scheduled day that she is available to work and the family, for any reason, decides they don’t need her. For example, this would include the family’s beach week or Labor Day weekend trip to the in-laws. How does offering this benefit to the nanny help the employer? Paying nannies for any regularly scheduled day when their services are not needed provides a stable income stream for your nanny, and will allow you to employ the best nanny (the best nannies look for the best employers!).  In addition, it is reasonable for the family to ask the nanny to perform routine household tasks—such as pet sitting or organization of kid’s school supplies and clothes—while the family is away (so long as you provide your nanny reasonable notice, of course). Your family may even consider bringing the nanny along on vacation!

Talking to our loved ones about the possibility of senior home care can be one heck of an uncomfortable conversation. Your aging mom or dad wants to age in place, and you want to help them achieve that goal safely.

The District of Columbia’s Wage Theft Prevention Amendment Act of 2014, became effective on February 26, 2015. This law does cover household employers - families who employ a nanny, housekeeper, senior caregiver or other domestic service worker. The law requires in part that employers provide written wage notices to their DC employees.  Household employers have until May 27, 2015 to satisfy this requirement with respect to their employees who were employed as of the Act’s effective date of February 26, 2015.