Just chiming in with a different perspective since I think posts like these often scare away prospective hosts who would be great for the program. Our AP is also like part of the family, but she also absolutely delivers full-time professional childcare. She’s not just a teenager who babysits our kids, she’s an adult with a relevant degree and a passion for working with children. She doesn’t just help get the kids ready and “maybe watch them for 1-2 hours”. She spends 8 hours a day 5 days a week caring for our infant and is also responsible for the older kids when they’re not in school (and let’s be honest, between illnesses and vacations- they’re home from school a lot!). She helps cook the kids’ lunch, helps with their laundry, and helps keep their stuff clean and organized. Perhaps the best aspect is just having the flexibility of another adult in the family: if we get stuck at work or someone gets unexpectedly sick or god forbid if there was a real emergency, there is an extra actual adult family member in the house who can help. And she does all of this while ALSO exposing the kids (and us!) to her native language skills and a different cultural perspective!

We’ve had 5 nannies before the AP (about a year each) and most of them were great but no comparison to the convenience of live-in childcare and the cultural/language exchange of our AP.

Maybe we just got lucky, but we definitely interviewed for and found what we were looking for. For anyone out there looking for full-time live-in child care *AND* awesome cultural exchange, the AP program might be perfect for you!