Frequently Asked Questions
I’m worried about leaving my child with a stranger, what safety measures/checks are in place?
At CocoRio, we always put the safety of children, families and our creative nannies at the forefront of our practice. For this reason, we follow a very thorough recruitment process to ensure we find the best possible talent for families. Please find our Safer Recruitment Policy here. In a nutshell, the nanny industry is unregulated but all our creatives hold a valid Enhanced DBS check, recent First Aid training and have completed a Safeguarding course. On top of that, we check two references for each candidate, then in our two interview rounds we score their experience working with children, understanding of children’s development and dealing with challenging behaviour. Once onboarded, our creatives also complete an industry specific training including topics such as Health and Safety in the home and outside, Safeguarding, age appropriate activities, relationship building and more.
Do your creatives have any child care qualifications?
Our creatives are not required to have professional childcare qualifications and the nanny industry does not require formal qualifications, though some of our creatives may do. However, throughout our recruitment process, we thoroughly assess each creative’s experience. During our two interviews (one on the phone and one face to face) our team scores our creatives on their child care skills including understanding of children’s development, health and safety and safeguarding, children’s development and relationships with children and families. The interview process includes group activities seeing our creatives in action interacting with others assessing their confidence and manners. It also includes role playing over challenging situations they may encounter on the job. These include handling tantrums and meltdowns as well as messy play, and again health and safety and safeguarding and families’ expectations.
I need to know the candidates you present me with are perfect, can I interview them?
The good news is that we do all the hard work of fully vetting and interviewing our creatives. We totally get that you might want to chat to your potential future creative nanny though, so you can request a call with them prior to an initial session if you are looking for a regular commitment. We can arrange that for you on the phone or on Zoom or you can directly chat with them and schedule a call, all through our app. We do highly recommend booking an initial session to begin with, actions speak louder than words and you’ll likely only know if someone is good for the job if you see them interacting with your little one(s)!
Can I talk to the creative before the session?
Yes, we encourage you to speak to the creative nanny prior to the session and inform them of any requirements you have, expectations and house rules. This can be done directly through the app.
Is the pricing the same for creative child care (£25 ph) if I have 2 children?
Yes - it is £25ph for two siblings unless their ages are very different and you require very different care/activities for each. If you have three or more children, please contact us with your needs and we can see if your children’s ages and activities fall into our standard price or not.
Please note that we charge per family. If you decide you want to ‘buddy up’ and invite some of your little one’s friends, we welcome this! However please note the price will then rise to £40 ph for two families (£20 each) or £50ph for three families (£16.70 each).
I’m not sure about when I need creative child care, do you only offer regular sessions?
No, CocoRio prides itself on offering flexible creative child care as well as recurring options. There are no membership fees nor do we require any commitment from you. Just book as and when you need! Our hourly rates are all inclusive. We do encourage you to book us on a regular basis to maximise the benefits of your children’s exposure to creativity and languages but this is entirely up to you. Repetition and consistency are key in order to consolidate relationships and learning.
Do you have a minimum hour policy?
In order to make each session long enough for the children and the creative to get to know each other as well as engaging in fun creative activities, we have a minimum 2 hour booking policy. This also ensures the creative’s travel time and costs are covered.
How far in advance can I book?
We can’t guarantee bookings made less than 2 working days in advance. However, we will try to fulfil any request as best we can. We can normally find creative nannies at the very last minute but a Late Booking fee and/or an Out of Hours Fee may apply. There is no limit to how far in advance you can book. If you are booking for a date far in the future or during holidays of any kind, we may ask you to pay a deposit to secure the creative’s availability. Through the app, you can simply view when the creative is available.
What if I need to cancel my booking?
For ad hoc bookings, we can reschedule/refund your booking if you cancel more than 48 hours prior to your booking. If you give us less notice, per our T&Cs a fee will be charged. However, if you have a valid reason for cancelling - including illness, self-isolation or emergency of any kind - if the creative is ok with rescheduling, you will have the option of doing so through the app.
How do I pay?
All bookings and payments go through the agency/app. You will be prompted to pay at the end of the booking process on the app. If going through the agency, you may be sent an invoice.
What if you don’t have a creative with the skills I’m looking for?
If you can’t find your ideal creative nanny on our app, contact us on 02081265577 or info@cocorio.co.uk. It may be that we have just recruited someone fitting your brief, and they are just finalising their onboarding!
What is the CocoRio method?
“A mix of music and movement and a sprinkle of art, all seasoned with the world’s languages”.
This is the magic recipe that CocoRio uses to create our unique Learning Journey that can follow your child from 6 months all the way to 16 years. Our magic ingredients: Music, Movement, Art and Languages are at the base of the creative experiences that we provide to your children. Families come to CocoRio because we aren’t a regular nanny agency. Our difference is in our creative approach which treats creativity as a lifestyle. By this we mean, we can have a creative approach to everything. For example turning the walk home from school into a sensory treasure hunt or making setting the table an exciting relay race.
Our fully-vetted Creative Nannies will bring this recipe with them in your home with the aim to look after your children as you need (school pickups, meal and bedtime routines) while also engaging them in engaging creative experiences that nurture their emotional well-being, and overall development.
What ages do you cater to?
We cater to children aged 6 months up to teenagers aged 15! We have different creatives catering to different age groups and will only match you with someone who is experienced in working with your child's age group. We also provide age appropriate activity training to our sitters and support them throughout their work.
Do you accept childcare vouchers/ free childcare hours?
Unfortunately we do not. Only OFSTED registered providers do - nurseries, childminders or some full time nannies for example. Nannies, au pairs and babysitters do not need to be OFSTED registered as they work in your home and with up to two families at once as opposed to a nursery setting or a childminder who looks after many children in one go.
Are your creative nannies OFSTED registered?
Because we specialise in part-time child care, we do not require our nannies to register with OFSTED as it can be quite administratively burdensome and time consuming for a part-time job. Although nannies can register with OFSTED on the voluntary register, registration is not necessarily a benchmark of quality for a nanny. There are many excellent, experienced, and very well qualified nannies, who aren’t OFSTED registered. The reason why some nannies are OFSTED registered and some aren’t normally comes down to their employing family’s request. This is normally because families want to take advantage of childcare vouchers - unfortunately as mentioned above, bookings through CocoRio will not qualify for childcare vouchers or the 15h/30h free childcare allocations.
Are taxes and insurance included in your hourly rate?
Taxes are included, as well as the below:
- Agency fees, no membership required, no placement fees
- CocoRio deals with contracts, administration and payment of the the creatives all through the app
- CocoRio ensures everyone on the platform holds an Enhanced DBS Check (police check)
- CocoRio provides regular training
- If a creative is ill/no longer available, CocoRio can arrange last minute replacements
- You can edit any changes to the booking you may have through the app (times, dates, etc)
Read our Terms and Conditions (2.15 and 10.1-3) for more information regarding insurance
Do you check your creative nannies’ references?
Yes. We check two references for each applicant. We use a standardised form and if the answers are concerning we call the referee and ask for clarifications. We do not store nor share any reference letters of our creative’s. So if you require a reference letter from a creative, you can ask them directly through the chat function on our app.