For au pair agencies, host families & au pairs
A young caregiver is moving in with a family she's never met — and that family is handing its children to someone from thousands of miles away. VolunteerBadge lets you vet the host family and the au pair for $5 each — identity-verified and FCRA-compliant — so a welcome across borders is also a safe one.
An au pair placement puts two sets of strangers under one roof — a young caregiver in a family's home, and a family's children in that caregiver's hands. The scale of the program, and the stakes for everyone in the house, are exactly why federal rules already demand vetting on both sides.
au pairs lived with and provided childcare for U.S. host families in 2023
U.S. State Dept / Federal Register
State-Department-designated sponsors are the only agencies allowed to place a J-1 au pair
BridgeUSA, U.S. Dept of State
the federal rule that requires vetting BOTH host families AND au pairs before a placement
eCFR, Title 22
of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child already knows and trusts
CDC
A background check is one layer of a safe placement — not a guarantee. This page is educational and not legal advice. Sources linked at the bottom.
Trust that goes both ways
Most screening tools only look one direction. An au pair placement has risk on both sides of the front door — so VolunteerBadge is built to vet the family and the caregiver with the same $5 check.
A family is inviting a young woman to live in their home — sleep down the hall, share meals, be alone with them daily. For an agency or an au pair, vetting the adults in that household is the most basic form of protection. Federal rule 22 CFR 62.31 already requires it.
The caregiver has unsupervised access to your children — driving them, feeding them, putting them to bed. For a host family or agency, a documented check on a U.S.-based au pair, nanny, or caregiver is a reasonable, defensible standard. (See the note on foreign au pairs below.)
Adults are the subject — never children. VolunteerBadge checks the host parents, resident adults, and caregivers in a placement. The children being cared for are never the subject of a check.
Everything an agency, host family, or caregiver needs to vet an adult in the placement — nothing you don't.
Email a link or share a QR code with a host family or caregiver. They apply from their phone in minutes.
A government ID + selfie confirm the real person; the $5 national check runs with their consent.
A verified badge lands on your dashboard — with adverse-action handled for you if records appear.
Practical guide
Whether you run a placement agency, coordinate a cluster of host families, or are a single family hiring in-home care, a good program protects everyone under the roof. Here is a practical, two-way way to build one.
Before a caregiver ever steps off a plane, the household she is moving into should be known. Federal rule 22 CFR 62.31 already requires a designated sponsor to personally interview the host parents and background-check every adult in the home — treat that as the floor, not the ceiling.
The au pair, nanny, or caregiver will have unsupervised access to children from day one. 22 CFR 62.31 requires au pair participants to pass a background investigation that includes a criminal check and a psychometric personality profile — again, a floor to build on.
Here is the honest part. A U.S. background check searches U.S. records. For a foreign au pair who has never lived in the United States, a U.S. check will mostly come back empty — that is expected, and it is not the whole picture.
Do not overclaim. Never tell a family that a U.S. check clears a caregiver of foreign records. Be specific about what was searched.
Free training: VolunteerBadge Academy has free certificate courses — child safety, safe boundaries, and mandated reporting — at academy.volunteerbadge.com.
Yes — and federal law already assumes it. Under 22 CFR 62.31, a State-Department-designated sponsor must personally interview and background-check the host parents and every adult living in the home, and the au pair must pass a background investigation that includes a criminal check and a psychometric personality profile. Trust runs both directions: a young woman is moving into a stranger’s house, and that house is handing its children to a stranger. VolunteerBadge lets an agency, a family, or a caregiver add a clear, documented screening layer to that arrangement.
A national criminal search across county, state, and federal court records, sex-offender registries in all 50 states plus the national registry (NSOPW), and federal watchlists — with biometric identity verification (government ID + live selfie), SSN and address-history checks, and a trained analyst’s review of every possible record before it reaches you. If you ever decline someone based on a record, the built-in FCRA adverse-action workflow is handled for you.
Honestly: only partly. A U.S. background check searches U.S. records, so for a foreign au pair who has never lived here it will mostly come back empty — her home-country vetting is the job of the State-Department-designated sponsor under 22 CFR 62.31, and VolunteerBadge is a complement to that process, not a replacement for it. Where VolunteerBadge is strongest is screening host families (all U.S.-based adults) and screening U.S.-based caregivers, nannies, and au pairs who already have a U.S. history.
Yes on compliance. Every check is consent-first with permissible-purpose handling and a built-in adverse-action workflow (pre-adverse notice, a waiting period, and a final notice). The subject is always an adult in the arrangement — a host parent, another resident adult, or the caregiver — never a child. Children are never the subject of a check.
The platform is free for nonprofits and small organizations — no monthly fees, no contracts, no per-seat charges. You only pay $5 when you actually run a check. Credits never expire and bulk bundles bring the price down, which matters for an agency screening many host families and caregivers at once. A single host family can create an account and run one check just as easily.
Vet the host family and the caregiver for $5 each — free platform, no contracts, FCRA-compliant. Set up in minutes.
Create your free accountScreening the adults in a placement — never the children.