November 2017 newsletter
Registrar update
In October I visited the Philippines and we ran two successful campaigns to inform Filipino and Indian communities about their options when seeking immigration advice. You can read more about these campaigns in this newsletter and watch the short IAA video we have been sharing on social media.
I reiterate my reminder from last month, to those of you who have relationships with recruitment agencies, that you must take great care to ensure that you are communicating with the visa applicants directly and not relying on unlicensed people to provide New Zealand immigration advice and assistance.
Our last webinar for the year is in November and is on your requirements to communicate with your client. This is a common area of concern in the inspection renewals and complaints we see. I encourage you to take an hour to refresh yourself on these core requirements.
In 2015 we introduced new competency standards that allowed the Authority to require advisers to complete mandatory CPD activities as part of the adviser’s 20 CPD hours. To date, we have not introduced any mandatory activities. Following ongoing discussions with the licensed adviser reference group, and the trialling of webinars run by the Authority, we will be introducing one mandatory webinar in the 2018 calendar year. Read more about this below.
Catherine Albiston
Registrar of Immigration Advisers
Introducing mandatory CPD
In 2015 we introduced new competency standards that allowed the Authority to require advisers to complete mandatory CPD activities as part of the adviser’s 20 CPD hours.
In 2018, the Immigration Advisers Authority will be requiring all licensed advisers to attend one mandatory webinar run by the IAA.
The webinar will be free and repeated at different times during the year.
The webinar will focus on an area that the Authority considers all licensed advisers could benefit from improving, based on what we see at inspections and in complaints.
The details of the mandatory webinar will be notified in this newsletter and on our website in early 2018.
Please note that the 2017 webinars are not mandatory, but may be counted towards your CPD hours. We encourage you to take a few moments to re-read our CPD Toolkit and to refresh yourself on the CPD requirements.
Philippines and India campaigns update
We chose to focus on Filipino and Indian communities with our latest information campaigns, given the high level of interest amongst these communities in visiting, working or residing in New Zealand.
In early October, the Registrar travelled to the Philippines as part of the campaign to raise awareness about the importance of using licensed or exempt immigration advisers in Filipino communities.
During the trip, Catherine visited Manila and Cebu to speak to POEA agencies, education agents, travel agents, and local media about New Zealand licensing requirements and the options Filipinos have if looking for New Zealand immigration advice.
We were able to warn Filipinos through media coverage about the risks associated with using unlicensed advisers, and share with them our new consumer checklist to guide the process of looking for immigration advice.
The trip to the Philippines was complemented with a social media campaign in both the Philippines and New Zealand, to inform communities that anyone offering New Zealand immigration advice must be licensed or exempt.
We ran a similar social media campaign at the same time in India and in New Zealand to complement our successful information campaign for Indian communities in 2016.
In each campaign, we reached nearly half a million people in our target audience. Around 40,000 people visited resources on the IAA website through the India campaign, and about 20,000 through the Philippine’s campaign over the course of a month.
IAA Online enhancements now live
We have launched some improvements to your IAA Online experience, including:
- You can now enter quarter hours (eg 1.25, 1.5 and 1.75) to your online CPD record instead of whole numbers only.
- Provisional licence holders can request a change in supervisor online, including uploading a new supervision agreement for approval. You can do this under “My profile – Change Supervisor”.
- It is now mandatory for you to provide us with an email address for correspondence. It will not be mandatory for you to have this displayed on the register. This will ensure we can remind you about your licence expiry date among other things.
- The prefix http:// will automatically be added to your website on the register so that people can click through to it.
2017 webinars
Communicating with your client
Wednesday 22 November 3-4pm
This webinar will go over the key requirements you have as a New Zealand licensed immigration adviser regarding communicating with your client.
Please register for this webinar here
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Conflicts of interest
A recording of this webinar is now available on our website.
You may count watching a recording of a seminar or other training session towards your CPD hours where that session includes interaction such as questions and answers. However, we do recommend that to get the most value from this activity you get together with at least one other adviser so that you can discuss the content.
2018 industry places on the Graduate Diploma in New Zealand Immigration Advice
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology will reserve 25 places in the February 2018 intake of the Graduate Diploma in New Zealand Immigration Advice for people currently employed within immigration practices. These places can be either full-time or part-time.
To reserve an industry place, the employer needs to contact Jeni Fountain jeni.fountain@toiohomai.ac.nz by Friday 17 November 2017and confirm that the employee:
- Has a formal employment relationship with their organisation.
- Will be required by their organisation to apply for an immigration adviser licence once they graduate.
Once an industry place has been offered to the employer’s organisation, the prospective student will need to apply and meet the academic and entry requirements of the programme before they can enrol and utilise the place reserved in their name.
Semester one of the Graduate Diploma starts on 19 February 2018.
Graduate Diploma Not-for profit Scholarship
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology offers one scholarship each year for a student of the Graduate Diploma in New Zealand Immigration Advice who intends to provide New Zealand immigration advice on a not-for-profit basis while working or volunteering for a not-for-profit organisation in New Zealand.
The scholarship will cover the student’s domestic tuition fees for the one year Graduate Diploma.
Before applying to the Polytechnic for the scholarship, the applicant must have their not-for-profit status pre-approved by the Authority.
