Were you aware that right now there isn't any national or state regulations concerning babysitters or nannies? What it boils down to is that almost anyone can apply for a nanny position just by calling themselves a nanny by trade. How scary is that? This shows the importance of checking up on the people who are looking after your children. Parents needs to familiarize themselves with performing background checks and the steps involved.

Most people run into the problem of nannies providing their own references, and that leads to them choosing previous employers or just about anybody who would portray them positively. These are not exactly the best recommendation you can get. That's why I recommend having background checks done on all potential nannies. Here are a few other steps you should take when performing a background check on a nanny:

• What you want to do is get at least three references from your nanny and get in contact with every single one of those contacts. You want to find out as much information and details as possible. Try to ask questions about the length of their employment and the quality of her work. Ask for a reason why their business relationship ended and if there were any problems at all. Most importantly, find out if they would ever hire that nanny again.



• If the references your nanny provided don't give you as much information as you would have originally liked, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for more references. You'll run into this problem more commonly if you can't get a hold of a reference on the nanny's list.



• Once you found a nanny that meets most of your early qualifications, have her fill out an application as she would at any other job. Ask for information such as her date of birth, driver's license number, any previous names, and names of the last five employers besides those earlier references. You should also get the names, addresses and phone numbers of close relatives, colleges or schools attended and dates as well as her last three home addresses. Basically, I would ask to see just about anything else you feel would be important.



• Before you run a background check, inform her you will be doing so and get her to sign a waiver authorizing that you can. This shouldn't be a problem at all to a trustworthy nanny. It's the ones who are hesitant on giving you all of this information that you need to be worried about.



• Once you get all of her information, you can start contacting everyone on the list to verify they are who she said they were. Start with relatives first then work your way to previous employers. Ask them if the information she provided you was indeed true and ask for their opinions on her.



• If you think you would feel more comfortable collecting as much information as possible, then by all means do so. There are a number of different background check services available online for you to use. I know a few families who even hired a personal investigator to look into a nanny's background. They aren't too expensive depending on how deep you want them to look into her background.