Sitter Agreement

Last updated: November 14, 2026Version 2026-11

This is the agreement every sitter signs in the app before appearing in search. It is version 2026-11. It sits alongside the Terms of Service, the Community Standards and the Cancellation Policy. You sign by typing your full legal name, which has the same effect as a handwritten signature.

1. Your relationship with SwingSitters

• SwingSitters, operated by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], is a marketplace that connects you with parents. You are an independent sitter. You are not our employee, agent or contractor, and we do not supervise or direct how you care for children.
• You decide your hourly rate and overnight fee within the published ranges, when you are available, and which requests you accept or decline. You are free to work elsewhere, including through other services.
• Each confirmed booking is an agreement directly between you and the parent.
• You are responsible for your own taxes. Depending on how much a family pays you in a year and on federal and state law, that family may be your household employer. We do not withhold tax, and we do not provide benefits, workers' compensation or insurance coverage.

2. Eligibility and honesty

• You are at least 18. To accept overnight bookings you are at least 21.
• You are legally permitted to work in the United States.
• Everything in your application and profile is true, and the references you give are real people who have seen you care for children.
• You keep your CPR and first-aid certificate current and upload the renewal before the old one expires. Your background check is renewed every 12 months. We remind you 30 days and 7 days before a step expires. If a step lapses, its badge is removed, your profile is hidden from search and you cannot accept new requests until it is renewed.
• You will tell us within 72 hours if you are arrested for, charged with or convicted of any offence, if you become the subject of a child-protection investigation, or if anything else happens that would change the outcome of your screening.
• You agree that we may repeat screening steps from time to time, with your authorisation where the law requires it.

3. Code of conduct

Caring for children

• The children's wellbeing comes first, ahead of everything else in this agreement.
• Follow the family's brief: routines, bedtimes, food, screens, allergies and medical needs.
• Never leave a child alone in the home, in a car or anywhere else. Stay awake and attentive during awake hours. On an overnight you may sleep during the agreed sleep period, in the place the family has provided, and you remain responsible for the children.
• Never use physical punishment of any kind. Do not shout at, shame, threaten or frighten a child.
• Give medication only as the parent has instructed in writing in the brief or the booking thread.
• For babies, follow the parents' instructions and current infant sleep guidance: on the back, in the baby's own sleep space.
• Do not drive the children anywhere, or take them out of the home, unless the parent has agreed in writing in the booking thread.
• Check in when you arrive and check out when you hand over, accurately.

Being fit for the job

• No alcohol, cannabis or other intoxicating substances before or during a booking, including an overnight. Do not work if a prescription medicine makes you drowsy or impaired.
• No smoking or vaping in or around the home.
• No visitors. Nobody else comes to the home during a booking, for any length of time.
• Keep your phone use to what the job needs, and keep your phone charged and audible.

Respecting the home

• Stay in the parts of the home you need for the job. Do not open drawers, cupboards, bags, devices or private rooms that have nothing to do with the children.
• Take no photographs, video or audio of the children, the family, the home or its contents. Post nothing about a booking online.
• Leave the home as you found it.

Professional boundaries

• You provide childcare and nothing else. You are never a guest of the family and never take part in a parent's social plans, during a booking or as a result of one.
• Do not make any romantic or sexual advance toward a parent or anyone in the home.
• If anyone makes a sexual advance or invitation toward you, or exposes themselves to you, you are entitled to end the booking using the "I need to leave" steps and you should report it to us. See section 7.
• Care takes place only in the family's home or a hotel room registered to the parent. Decline, and report, any request to provide care at a venue, club, party or event.
• Treat every family with equal respect. Do not discriminate or harass on the basis of race, colour, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or relationship status, family structure, or any other characteristic protected by law.
• Bookings that come to you through SwingSitters are booked and paid through SwingSitters.

4. Discretion and confidentiality

Families use SwingSitters because they value their privacy. Discretion is a core part of what you are offering.

• Do not ask. Do not ask parents where they are going, who they are seeing, why they are out late or why they are away overnight. Do not comment on what they wear, what they pack, when they return or how they seem when they do. The brief tells you what you need to know.
• Do not tell. Treat as confidential everything you learn through a booking: who the family is, the fact that they use SwingSitters, their address, their comings and goings, their visitors, their belongings, and anything you see or overhear. Do not disclose it to anyone, including friends, partners, relatives, other clients or anyone online, and do not hint at it.
• Do not judge. Families are arranged in many ways. A parent's lawful, consensual adult relationships and social life are their own business. They are not a child-welfare concern and are not a reason to treat a family differently.
• Use details only for the job. Use the address, phone numbers and brief only for the booking they belong to.
• These duties continue after the booking ends and after you stop using SwingSitters.

5. What confidentiality never covers: the child-safety exception

Nothing in this agreement, in any SwingSitters policy, or in anything a parent asks of you, prevents, limits or discourages you from doing any of the following. You do not need permission from us or from the parent, and you do not need to tell either of us first.

• Calling 911 or other emergency services.
• Reporting suspected abuse or neglect of a child to child protective services or to the police. In some states, people who care for children are mandated reporters by law. It is your responsibility to know the law where you work, and this agreement is to be read consistently with it.
• Seeking medical help for a child or for yourself.
• Cooperating with law enforcement, a child-protection agency, a court or any government agency, or answering a subpoena or court order.
• Reporting a crime, or conduct you reasonably believe to be unlawful, to the authorities.
• Reporting an incident or a concern to SwingSitters.
• Speaking about harassment, discrimination or assault that you have experienced, or about your own pay and working conditions.
• Getting advice from a lawyer.

We will never penalise you for a report made in good faith, and we will never ask you to stay silent about a child at risk. A report should be based on what you have observed about a child's safety or welfare, not on a parent's lawful private life (see section 4).

6. Handing back care

• At the end of a booking, hand the children over only to the parent or another adult the parent has authorised, and only if that adult is able to care for the children at that moment.
• If no authorised adult who is able to care for the children is present, stay with the children. You remain on the clock at the overtime rate. Call the emergency contact named in the brief, and file an incident note afterwards. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911.
• Parents returning from an evening out may have been drinking. That alone is not a concern and is not yours to comment on. The question is only whether a responsible adult can take over.
• Do not accept a lift home from anyone you believe has been drinking. The ride-home stipend exists so that you do not have to.

7. Your protections

• Zero tolerance. Any sexual advance, invitation or exposure toward you, by a parent or anyone in the home, is prohibited. We act on a single report, and it ends that family's access to SwingSitters.
• The right to leave. If you feel unsafe, use the "I need to leave" steps on your safety screen. Contact the emergency contact so that the children are not left alone. If you or a child are in immediate danger, call 911 and get to a place of safety. If you have to end a booking for your own safety and tell us, you are paid for the time you worked or three hours at the booking's hourly rate, whichever is greater.
• An honest brief. Parents must tell you about cameras, pets, other adults in the home and where you will sleep on an overnight. Cameras are never permitted in a bathroom or in the room where you sleep.
• The right to say no. You may decline any request, and you may end a booking that is not what was described.

8. Pay

• You receive 100% of your hourly rate, the extra-child add-on, the after-midnight premium, your overnight fee, the ride-home stipend, overtime and tips. The service fee is charged to the parent on top and is not deducted from your pay.
• You appoint SwingSitters as your limited agent solely to collect payment from parents on your behalf.
• Payouts are sent to your connected payout account, normally 24 hours after check-out, unless an incident is open on the booking, in which case the payout is paused until a person on our team has resolved it. Tips are passed on when paid.
• If a parent returns late, overtime is paid at 1.5 times the booking's hourly rate in 15-minute blocks after a 15-minute grace period. Overtime is charged to the parent's card at check-out and paid to you when it has been collected. If the card is declined we retry it over 72 hours and block that parent from new bookings; a person on our team reviews any overtime still uncollected and we may pay it to you from our own funds.
• If a parent cancels late, you are paid as set out in the Cancellation Policy.

9. Reliability

Families plan around you. If you must cancel, do it as early as you can; the parent is refunded in full. Repeated late cancellations, or failing to arrive, may lead to your profile being removed from search.

10. Incidents, suspension and removal

If you cancel a confirmed booking less than 24 hours before it starts, or do not arrive, a strike is recorded; three strikes within 180 days leads to a review of your profile. If we suspend, reject or close your profile, your upcoming bookings are cancelled and the families are refunded. A report against you about a child's safety or sexual conduct pauses your account at once while a person reviews it.

We may pause your profile while we look into an incident, and may suspend or remove you from SwingSitters if we reasonably believe you have broken this agreement, if a screening step is failed or lapses, or if we believe a child's or anyone's safety is at risk. You may stop using SwingSitters at any time once you have no active bookings.

11. Versions and changes

This is version 2026-11. If we change this agreement in a material way, we will publish a new version and ask you to sign it before you accept further bookings.

12. Disputes

Disputes between you and SwingSitters are handled as set out in section 19 of the Terms of Service. Nothing there or here limits the rights listed in section 5.