5 Reasons Nanny Specific Training is Essential

By Michelle LaRowe, Global Nanny Training

While nannies fall under the umbrella of childcare providers, their role, workplace, and responsibilities are certainly unique.

Childcare trainings designed for daycare workers, center-based providers, and early childhood educators certainly cover content that nannies can apply to their work but does not always take into consideration the special challenges, circumstances, and situations that nannies regularly face in their role or their workplace.

For that reason, when considering training, nannies will benefit from programs that are developed specifically for them by those who know the nanny industry best. 

When nannies invest in high quality, competency-based and third-party accredited nanny specific training, it can increase their nanny knowledge base, marketability, credibility, and earning potential.

When nanny referral agencies encourage and support high quality and competency-based nanny specific training, it can increase the quality of their candidate pool, which can positively influence their candidate marketability and agency bottom line.

Here’s why:

1. Nanny specific training increases a nanny’s understanding of nanny knowledge and a nanny’s role and responsibilities, which is required to be successful. While many other childcare roles require certification or licensing based on established standards to obtain work, no such requirement yet exists for nannies in the United States. Over the course of the last 25 years, however, industry organizations have begun to develop best practices, standards, and recommend minimum requirements for nannies in effort to bring uniformity in understanding to the role nannies play in families and the responsibilities they have in their work.  When choosing nanny specific training, look for educators who have experience as nannies, have played a key role in helping to develop and promote industry accepted norms, and have extensive experience and knowledge about the nanny industry. 
2. Nanny specific training educates nannies about the challenges that come with the unique work environment of a nanny. When you work in a childcare center, you never have to worry about your boss walking out of his office in his underwear, go without a co-worker being arm’s reach away ready to lend a hand, or not having constant oversight as you perform your duties. Nannies work largely unsupervised in their employers’ private homes. The intimate nature of the workplace and the dynamics of the relationship between parents and a caregiver who often spends more time in their home, with their children, then they do can bring many challenges. Nanny specific education is designed from the understanding of the unique workplace and unique relationships that nannies encounter and provides training form that perspective. 
3. Nanny specific training empowers the nanny to be his or her own human resources advocate. When you work as a nanny, you have no one to help you when your paycheck seems off or when you have questions about scheduling your vacation or how to notify your employer when you are sick. You are forced to figure these things out on your own, hopefully prior to starting a position with the creation of a written work agreement and household manual. Nanny specific training gives you tools and strategies for starting off the employer/employee relationship right, having tough conversations about the business side of nannying, and understanding the law, wage compliance, and tax implications related to being and hiring a nanny. 
4. Nanny specific training is developed specifically for nannies. Nanny specific training isn’t childcare training adapted for nannies, it’s created for nannies with a special understanding of what a nanny is, where a nanny works, and what a nanny needs to know to be successful. As a center-based childcare provider, there are things about the children in your care, the families you work with, your employers, and your workplace that you will never know or never need to know, like how to get to the children’s doctor’s office or how to contact grandma, but for nannies, this information is vital in ensuring they can safely and effectively perform their job.
5. Nanny specific training can give your candidates added earning potential and credibility. Voluntarily enrolling and completing training that is specifically created for your workforce role demonstrates that you are a professional who desires to be more knowledgeable in your area of professional practice. With third-party accreditation now available to nannies in the United States by NCFE/CACHE, the most recognized childcare care awarding organization in the world through partnership with GlobalNannyTraining.com, there has never been a better time to invest in professional development and increase your earning potential and credibility.

By encouraging, supporting, and empowering nannies to pursue high-quality, competency-based, and accredited nanny specific training our industry will unite in raising the bar for in-home childcare, industry standards, and household employee treatment. 

Michelle LaRowe has over 25 years of experience in the nanny industry and has worked as an award-winning nanny, past executive director of the International Nanny Association, executive director of the award-winning nanny referral agency, Morningside Nannies, and is the lead educator at NannyTraining.com and GlobalNannyTraining.com. She is also the publisher of Nanny Magazine, the industry’s leading trade publication. Michelle, along with Stella Reid, launched the first US Based NCFE accredited nanny training program and continues to develop competency-based training specifically for nannies. 

GlobalNannyTraining.com is the global leader in nanny training that leads to credentials. In partnership with NCFE/CACHE, accredited and customized nanny specific training is available to nannies across the globe.