Guides
SEN governess: agency or private hire?
The short answer: hire privately if you already know exactly what you need and are prepared to screen, plan and supervise yourself. Use an agency if you want those things done for you — and only if the agency actually does them.
What hiring privately means
You find the candidate, check her references, agree the terms, write the brief, and decide what happens when it stops working. It costs less up front. It also means that if the placement fails in month four, you start again from nothing, usually mid-term.
Plenty of families do this well. They tend to be families who have employed household staff before, have a clear plan from a therapist or school, and have the time to manage the role.
What an agency should do for its fee
- Interview and screen candidates before you see a name
- Call references, and tell you what the referees said
- Match against a written brief rather than against who is available
- Brief the specialist on your child's plan before day one
- Have someone clinically qualified review the work
- Replace the specialist if the placement does not work
If an agency does the first two and none of the rest, you are paying a finder's fee for a private hire.
The question that separates them
Ask: who writes the plan, and who reviews it? A recruitment-only agency will say the family does. A managed service will name a clinical lead. Neither answer is wrong, but they are different products at different prices and you should know which one you are buying.
How Special Minds does both
We offer the two as separate services so that families are not sold the wrong one. Managed, we employ and supervise the specialist for AED 15,000–30,000/mo, with AED 1,999 to open the search. Direct hire, we run the search and you employ her: AED 1,499 to open it, and a placement fee of one month of the candidate's agreed gross salary.
The SEN governess page sets both out side by side, and the hiring checklist works whichever route you take.