If you are looking for live-in care for your children, you would be well advised to navigate the process according to a set of guiding principles. Your chosen caregiver will enforce rules concerning diet, routine and exercise with your children and thus will be responsible, to a great extent, for their health and wellbeing: Clearly, you want to find the right person for the job.
To begin with you should contact an agency specialising in childcare. Discuss your needs with them; they should be able to come back to you with a few potential options. Remember that before you even meet with a prospective employee, you will need to have worked out a programme of duties and responsibilities.
Once you have narrowed your search to one or two potential candidates, take some time to go through their CVs, checking references yourself. While a good agency will probably have already performed the background search for you, checking yourself will not only afford you peace of mind, but will allow you to correct any oversights or mistakes that might have been made in previous investigations.
Once your caregiver has been hired and has moved into your home, it is very important to remember that just because she is around, this does not mean you can constantly ask her to perform tasks. Her contract will stipulate exactly what s/he is supposed to do, and how many hours s/he is supposed to work.
This document needs to be respected. Violating the contract on your part will give them the right to leave the position immediately, and may make it hard for you to find a replacement.