Provisional immigration adviser accreditation given to NZMedics manager.
The New Zealand Rural General Practice Network has a new string to its recruitment bow thanks to NZMedics manager Julie Wilson.
Necessitated by a May 4 law change that requires anybody in New Zealand providing immigration advice to be licensed, Julie has recently acquired a provisional licence as an accredited adviser from the Immigration Advisers Authority, which falls under the auspices of the Department of Labour.
NZMedics is the urban medical recruitment arm of the Network and NZLocums is the rural equivalent. Both agencies have historically offered immigration advice to doctors wanting to work in New Zealand. The recent law change meant that without the appropriate accreditation, NZMedics’ and NZLocums’ clients would have to have been referred to another agency on immigration issues.
"After a lot of discussion with IAA and given the advice we provide our doctors it was deemed necessary for the Network to have a licensed immigration consultant and that’s where I came in,” says Julie.
There are three levels of adviser accreditation: Full, limited or provisional. Full accreditation should take about 12 months, says Julie.
The Network could have recruited doctors and got immigration advice elsewhere but that would have brought in a third party and slowed the process down and it’s a service that goes hand-in-hand with recruitment, so it is a natural move for us to take on the immigration advice service.
The availability of immigration advice through the Network makes the process seamless and offers a one-stop shop for doctors coming here from abroad to work in urban and rural settings, says Julie.
Doctors are able to use another immigration advice service if they desire.
Gaining the accreditation has seen Julie immersed in familiarising herself with immigration processes and protocol during the past few months. That included setting up a new service or business model from scratch and required her to show processes, procedures and how to conduct an application. The IAA wanted to know what sort of information or advice should be given to clients under certain circumstances and it presented a variety of scenarios. Processes must be transparent with the most up-to-date advice given to the client, says Julie.
Accuracy of information is extremely important. An adviser’s license can be revoked by the IAA under certain circumstances.
Julie has already taken up the role as a preliminary licensed immigration adviser and is working with her first official case. Every application and query has to be run through a licensed supervisor until full accreditation is granted.
The names of those accredited or licensed as immigration consultants can be found on the IAA website: http://www.iaa.govt.nz/