Why You Should Do A Background Check On A Prospective Nanny

Are you looking for a nanny? Do you need someone to look after your children while you are working? Is that person going to live in your home with you? Are they going to be spending extended periods of time with your children without supervision? Are your children very young and unable to communicate well?

These are all reason why you should do an exhaustive background check on your prospective nanny. If you need someone to look after your children when you are not able to, you need to make sure that there is nothing in that persons background that could cast suspicion on whether or not they are qualified to hold that position. There is nothing more important then the safety and well being of your children.

You can do an exhaustive background check quite easily nowadays. You can do it yourself online or hire a company. A background check can include criminal histories, criminal records, credit information as well as previous addresses and things of that nature. You of course would want to know of any criminal history that your prospective employee has. Whether or not children are involved if their record is not clean, and even if children are not involved, there are many offenses that a person could commit that could give you good reasons not to hire them. A drunk driving conviction for example, is a red flag that a alcohol problem could exist. Is your nanny going to be responsible for driving your children to and from school and after school activities? Then you are going to want to see their driving record. A person with many driving offenses may lack driving skills and you wouldn?t want them driving your children around. A person who doesn?t pay their bills on time could have a hard time managing their finances. This could be a sign of immaturity and irresponsibility.

Just doing a simple reference check is important. It can tell you if their previous employers had any difficulties with them and if so what they were. Gathering all the information possible about prospective nannies is very important. The information combined with an interview that gives you the opportunity to ask any questions that arise form the background check and give the prospective nanny a chance to answer them. You need to trust your instincts about a person. If you do a background check combined with reference checks and an exhaustive interview, you should be able to get a good picture of what kind of person the nanny is and if she/he would be a good fit with your family.

Jennie Crawford is a stay at home mom of two small children. For more information about background checks, go to http://www.jenniecrawford.com/onlinebackgroundchecks or http://www.jenniecrawford.com/workingathome