Residential Care Officers in Demand in Australia

Currently there is a huge demand for Residential Care Officers in Australia. If you meet the necessary requirements you can emigrate to Australia under the General Skilled Migration (GSM) Program. A Residential Care Officer provides care and supervision for children or disabled persons in group housing or institutional care.

GSM is for professionals and other skilled migrants who have skills in particular occupations required in Australia and who are not sponsored by an employer. Australian Immigration uses a

Skilled Occupation List (SOL)

as part of their points system. In order to qualify for skilled migration to Australia, you must nominate an occupation from the SOL.

In order to qualify as an Residential Care Officer, you must meet the following requirements:

• Have a level of skill commensurate with an Associate Degree or Advanced Diploma.
• If you have no diploma, at least three years of relevant experience may substitute for the formal qualifications. In some instances, relevant experience and/or on-the-job training may be required in addition to the formal qualification.

Please note that beginning 1 July 2012, Australian immigration will be introducing significant changes to their skilled migration program. Under the new Australian immigration system, it is expected fewer applicants will qualify for a visa and processing times will be longer. If you wish to come under the current skilled immigration programme you should apply for a skills assessment as soon as possible. Prior to submitting your immigration application, you need to be ready with your skills assessment and have passed the English language test.

In order to be exempt from taking the English Language Test, applicants must:

• Be 32 years old or younger
• Have at least 5-8 years of work experience
• Hold a degree in Nursing
• Be sponsored by an Australian state

Before emigrating to Australia as a skilled migrant you need to have your skills assessed by the relevant assessment authority for your occupation. For this occupation you will need to be assessed by VETASSESS. They assess your post-secondary educational qualifications against the educational level requirements of your nominated occupation. In addition to this, they also assess whether your qualifications are in a highly relevant field to your nominated occupation.

Once you have your positive assessment letter from VETASSESS, you can apply for the skilled migration visa electronically and count your assessment points in the points test in order to qualify for the visa.

If you meet the requirements for this occupation, there is a very good chance you can obtain an Australian visa.

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