If "au pair" has only lately become a household word across America, it's been kicked around all day every day for years at Au Pair Programme USA.
Inside its offices in the heart of local suburbia just south of I-215, the Utah agency quietly places about 1,000 young foreign women annually as child-care helpers - au pairs - in homes around the country.That's almost one in every 10 au pairs in the United States, all of whom are here under the auspices of a federal program that grants special, one-year visas to au pairs and is charged with regulating their presence through a host of restrictions.
The private, for-profit corporation started as a small nanny service founded by a Utah couple in 1983 and is one of only eight agencies allowed today to sponsor au pairs into the United States.
The company is a sizable player in what began in 1986 as an international exchange effort administered by the U.S. Information Agency, best known for operating Voice of America, the federal government's overseas broadcast network.
In its maiden year, the federal au pair program attracted 300 young women from abroad. Since then, about 60,000 have taken part. This year 11,000 au pairs will come to America in what recently has been touted as much as an economic alternative to day care as a cultural exchange.
Neither the program nor its boom was given much attention until Massachusetts au pair Louise Woodward was charged earlier this year with killing an infant left in her care by the child's parents.
Overnight, au pairs were in the limelight, and the upshot has been a slowdown on the British supply side of the exchange, said Michael Bray, who founded, owns and manages Au Pair Programme USA with his wife, Jacque. They also run a smaller nanny service.
Last year, the company took 600 applications from aspiring au pairs in the United Kingdom. This year, only 240 queries arrived from Britain.
Why the decline?
"No one wants to send their daughter over here to go to jail," Michael Bray said, noting that in Britain the Woodward story played even bigger than it did in this country, where it arguably has been the most-noted national story of the season.
Questions about how they manage their operations are answered openly by the couple, who point to federal regulations that police au pair programs as well as additional standards the company has imposed on itself.
The Brays trace their business beginnings to 1984, when they founded a local nanny service in response to a then-fashionable national demand for nannies, whose non-foreign status and relative absence of oversight distinguishes them from au pairs.
Much of the early story of the Brays mirrored a bigger one occurring in Utah at the time, when young women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found themselves in demand for child care and housekeeping duties in affluent homes along the Eastern seaboard.
"There were organizations back then that recruited Utah heavily," Michael Bray said, and hundreds of local college-age women took part every year. The Brays alone placed 500 nannies a year through their agency, a fraction of the state's total, and heard reports that some bishops of East Coast LDS wards counted scores of Utah women working as nannies in their congregations alone.
Michael Bray said East Coast newspapers even noted the phenomenon, reporting that while "young Mormon men go on church missions, young Mormon women go on their own missions - as nannies."
It was a way to see the world, to offer a service and to make a little money.
But in 1988, the LDS Church discouraged the practice in a letter to local leaders, concerned that the Utah nanny industry was subjecting its young participants to exploitation - or abuse in some cases.
Other social factors contributed to the demise of nannies, not the least of which was a sudden fashion for au pairs, the exotically named substitute for U.S. nannies.
Their cachet was new but formally sanctioned by the federal government, which through its 1986 program immediately shaped the very definition of au pair.
Economics also played a role. Au pairs at most earned half what nannies did, proving a cheap alternative to nannies, as they do today.
Under federal mandate, au pairs are paid $139.05 per week in "pocket money" by the family that serves as their American host. Their weekly work load is limited to 45 hours, their duties are restricted to child care and light housekeeping and they receive up to $500 in tuition for post-secondary education.
A host family must also pay a placement fee of about $4,500, and au pairs arrive on visas good for only one year.
Thus, families who sign contracts with Au Pair Programme USA - or any of the other seven sanctioned agencies - enter into a one-year arrangement at a total cost of about $12,000, or $240 per week.
It's expensive, but in many cases not as expensive as day care, which can easily exceed $240 a week for families with more than one child. This is part of the attraction of the au pair, but not the only one, Jacque Bray said.
"It's a wonderful opportunity to share with someone from a different culture," she said.
Au Pair Programme USA's literature covers both bases, plugging its business as an effort "to promote the general interests of education and cultural exchange, while providing live-in child care for approved host families."
Demand for au pairs has fallen only slightly since the Woodward case commandeered headlines, the Brays said. The noteworthy effect is the sudden decrease in British interest in the program, though Au Pair Programme USA has enough irons in the supply fire to cover the shortfall.
Its au pairs also come from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and any number of non-British European countries whose cities are cited in one company brochure, including Paris, Barcelona, Bonn, Brussels, Copenhagen, Milan, St. Tropez.
Applicants must speak English, pass a background check, produce from two to four child-care references, have some training and be compatible with their host family. The Midvale agency allows greater freedom among both its au pairs and family clients in choosing each other and also boasts closer historical ties to child care, the Brays said.
"We're the only one of these companies with its origins there," Michael Bray said.
Not much of its trade is in Utah, however. Only about 15 families - mostly in Park City and Sandy - have au pair contracts with Au Pair Programme USA. Demographics explain the local dearth of demand. Utah has the largest families, the youngest population and the most stay-at-home mothers in the country.
The handful of local households that have au pairs, said Jacque Bray, are typical of those where the company does its major business in cities such as New York, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.
"Usually both parents work, they're professionals, they have an interest in teaching their children another culture," she said.
One other thing: "They have to be making an adequate income to afford live-in child care."
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
An au pair is not a nanny
Au pairs are from foreign countries. Translated, the term is "on par," from a time when young English women worked in French households "on par," or equal with other family members. Modern U.S. au pairs are defined by federal standards. They must be between the ages of 18 and 26, speak English, clear background checks and have references. They are paid $139.05 a week for 45 hours and get regular opportunities for out-of-home schooling and socialization. They are high school graduates and have a minimum of 32 hours of child-care training.
Nannies typically are from the United States. They make more money than au pairs - from $300 to $700 a week. No statutory regulation covers nannies, though two professional associations impose standards on members and certification is offered at a few U.S. schools. Average experience among members of the National Association of Nannies is five years. Their British roots date from the late 1800s.