Safety
You are deciding whether a stranger sleeps in your house next to your newborn. You should know exactly what that decision rests on, and it rests on you.
FindNightNanny does not conduct identity verification, criminal background checks, reference checks, credential verification, or any other screening of caregivers. Email verification only confirms access to the email address associated with the account and should not be considered an endorsement, recommendation, or determination that a caregiver is qualified, trustworthy, suitable, or safe. Parents are responsible for conducting their own due diligence before hiring any caregiver.
The 6 things we do not do
The same facts as the paragraph above, itemised, because a parent looking for one of them should not have to find it inside a sentence.
- Confirm that a caregiver is who she says she is.
- Run a criminal record check or a police check of any kind.
- Contact, call or write to a caregiver's references.
- Confirm a certificate, a qualification or a training course with the body that issued it.
- Interview, assess or meet a caregiver.
- Decide whether a caregiver is qualified, suitable or safe for your family.
What confirming an email address proves
A caregiver appears in search once she has confirmed the email address on her account and her listing is complete. Confirming an email address proves that somebody can open that inbox. It proves nothing about the person, and it is the only thing FindNightNanny checks.
It is worth being plain about why we say this at all. A confirmed email address is the only check a caregiver passes to be listed here, and a check that small is easily mistaken for a bigger one. It is not an endorsement, and nobody at FindNightNanny has met, spoken to or looked into the person on the other side of it.
What she tells you herself
A profile carries claims a caregiver makes about her own training — infant CPR, first aid, a police check, newborn certification. They are shown as hers, under a heading that says so, with no tick beside them. Searching on one of them searches on what she typed.
Everything in this section was typed by the caregiver herself. Nothing here has been seen, confirmed or checked by anyone at FindNightNanny, and no document has been asked for or held. Ask to see the certificate itself, and check it with the body whose name is on it.
Where your address goes
Your street address is never on your profile, never in search, and never on a card. It is shared with the people you have agreed to work with — when a care request is accepted, in both directions, one booking at a time. Every time either of you opens it we record who looked and when, and you can see that list in Settings. If the booking is declined, cancelled or marked as a no-show, or either of you blocks the other, the address stops being shared at once; after a booking is completed it stays available for seven more days, for anything left behind, and then stops.
This runs both ways. A caregiver gives a family her home address on the same terms she gets theirs, and she can see who has opened hers in exactly the same place.
What the platform does in code
The platform does 5 things in code rather than in copy. None of them is a judgement about a person.
A listing needs a confirmed email address
A caregiver cannot be found until the email address on her account has been confirmed and her listing is complete. That is a check on an inbox and not on a person, and it is the only check this platform runs.
Reviews come only from care that happened
A review can be written only by the family or the caregiver on a booking whose first night of care is over, or one cancelled after at least one night had begun. A booking declined, or cancelled before its first night, can never be reviewed; a booking reported as a no-show takes no new review, and one written before the report that had not yet been shown never is. There is no other route to leaving one.
Reading your messages leaves a record
An administrator can open a conversation or download a copy. Both take a written reason, and both record which administrator, which conversation and when. Those three facts cannot be changed or deleted through the platform.
Blocking takes effect immediately
Once you block someone, they cannot message you or send you a care request, and neither of you appears in the other's search results. A booking you already have with them is not cancelled, but neither of you can see the other's address any more; cancel the booking as well if you want it to end.
Your address is shared by a booking, and every read is on the record
A street address is never on a profile, in search or on a card. One request can serve it — to the other side of a care request you have both agreed to, while that booking stands and for seven days after it is completed. Every read is recorded, and the list of who has looked at yours is in your settings.
Before anybody stays a night
Ask to see photo identification and every certificate she has told you about, and confirm each one with the body whose name is on it rather than with her. Ask for a recent police or vulnerable sector check and read it yourself. Call at least two families she has worked for, and ask them the questions you would not want to have to ask her. Meet her in your own home, more than once, before she stays a night. FindNightNanny has done none of this for you, and the judgement about whether somebody sleeps in your house next to your newborn is yours alone.