What caregiver means
A caregiver is engaged to look after somebody who needs looking after.
It covers several arrangements. A nanny caring for children. A live in housekeeper who also minds the children. A carer for an elderly parent. A trained health aide for somebody recovering from illness. Sometimes a relative doing all of it for an agreed payment.
What unites them is a relationship of exceptional trust with almost no paperwork. The person is in your home, with your children or your parent, often unsupervised, frequently living with you, and in most Nigerian households the entire arrangement rests on a conversation.
That is the gap a written agreement closes. Not because trust is misplaced, but because the arrangement lasts for years, memories differ, and the things that go wrong are precisely the things nobody discussed.
How it is used
A caregiver agreement should cover the practical ground.
Duties, stated specifically. School runs, meals, homework, laundry, medication, mobility assistance. Vagueness here produces most of the friction, particularly where a nanny is gradually asked to become a housekeeper.
Hours and days off, including whether the arrangement is live in and what time off a live in carer actually gets.
Pay, when it is paid, and how any overtime or extra days are treated.
Leave, including annual leave and what happens over public holidays.
Accommodation and meals where live in, and what deductions if any are made for them.
Confidentiality, covering the family's private information.
Safeguarding, including who may collect a child, permission around travel and medical decisions, and emergency contacts.
Notice on both sides, and what happens on termination.
And verification before engagement: identity documents, references that are actually called, and a guarantor where appropriate.
Key features
- A position of exceptional trust, usually engaged informally
- Duties should be specific, particularly where the role may expand
- Live in arrangements need clear terms on hours, time off and accommodation
- Domestic workers are generally within the Labour Act definition of worker
- Safeguarding terms should cover collection, travel and medical decisions
- References and identity verification belong before engagement, not after
How this works in Nigeria
Domestic workers are generally within the Labour Act's definition of a worker, which means the statutory provisions on notice, leave and conditions apply in principle. In practice enforcement is rare, and most arrangements are governed entirely by what the parties agreed verbally.
That produces predictable problems. A nanny engaged for childcare gradually takes on cooking, cleaning and laundry with no change in pay. A live in carer works effectively around the clock with no defined time off. A family dismisses somebody after four years with no notice and no terminal payment. Each of these is avoidable with one document.
The safeguarding side deserves more attention than it gets. Written permission about who may collect a child, whether the caregiver may travel with the child, and what medical decisions they may make in an emergency protects everybody, and a signed travel consent avoids problems at checkpoints and airports.
Verification is the other gap. References given verbally by a friend of a friend are not verification. Ask for identity documents, call previous employers directly, and where the person will live in, ask for a guarantor whose details you keep.
For an elderly relative, the same agreement should record who pays, since disputes between siblings about a parent's care costs are common and rarely about the money alone.
Caregiver vs domestic staff vs agency placement
Three arrangements with different lines of responsibility.
A directly engaged caregiver works for you. You set the terms, pay them, and carry the obligations of an employer, including notice and leave.
General domestic staff engaged directly are in the same position, and the distinction from a caregiver is the duties rather than the legal status. Where one person does both, the agreement should say so explicitly rather than letting the role drift.
An agency placement adds a third party. The agency recruits, sometimes screens, and often charges a placement fee. The contractual position depends on the arrangement: the person may be employed by the agency and placed with you, or introduced to you and employed by you. Ask which, because it determines who is responsible for pay, conduct and replacement.
Whichever route, the household should still hold the person's identity documents, emergency contacts and references. Agencies vary enormously in how carefully they screen.
Limits and risks
Enforcement is the weak point on both sides. A caregiver denied notice pay is unlikely to litigate, and a family whose caregiver leaves without notice has no practical remedy either.
Agreements also cannot substitute for supervision. Written safeguarding terms matter, but so do references actually checked and arrangements that do not leave a new person alone with a child from day one.
Live in arrangements are difficult to regulate by contract, because the boundary between working and being present is blurred. Defined time off is the closest workable answer.
And the informal nature of the sector means pay and conditions are set by the market rather than by any standard, with wide variation and little transparency.
Worth knowing
Write down the duties and the days off before the person starts, and call at least two previous employers yourself. Nigerian caregiver arrangements fail over scope creep and over a reference nobody actually checked, and both are fixed in an afternoon at the start.
Questions people ask
Do I need a written agreement for a nanny or caregiver?
Yes. It fixes duties, hours, pay, leave, notice and safeguarding before the arrangement drifts, and it protects both sides in a relationship that usually runs for years on a single conversation.
Are domestic workers covered by Nigerian labour law?
Domestic workers are generally within the Labour Act's definition of a worker, so provisions on notice, leave and conditions apply in principle. Enforcement is rare in practice, which is why the written agreement matters.
What should a caregiver agreement cover?
Specific duties, hours and days off, pay and payment dates, leave, accommodation and meals where live in, confidentiality, safeguarding terms, notice on both sides, and emergency contacts.
How do I check a caregiver's background?
Ask for identity documents and keep copies, call previous employers directly rather than accepting written references, and where the person will live in, ask for a guarantor whose details you keep.
Can my caregiver travel with my child?
Only with written authority. A signed travel consent naming the caregiver, together with copies of the parents' identification, avoids problems at checkpoints and at airports.
What notice must I give a domestic worker?
Whatever the agreement provides, and the Labour Act minimums based on length of service apply where the worker is within its scope. Putting notice in the agreement removes the argument entirely.