Hi and thanks for reading my post.


I am 31 year old British citizen just about to graduate on an Approved Social Worker Masters Degree here in Ireland.

My position of Social Worker is on the approved workers list and i plan to work as a Social Worker for 2 years when i graduate to get the '12 months out of 24' completed.

We are a de-facto couple been together for 3 years, plus have a 1 year old daughter (born in Ireland) , my partner who is 33 and a German native is training to be an Adult language teacher (she speaks fluent English, italian, french, german and spanish) so she can teach any of these but preferably wants to teach adults (hates school system)

i'm just making initial enquiries to see if it is worth pursuing this. I always wanted to move to Australia before having a child ( i even had a working visa application accepted 3years ago before meeting my partner... and then life got in the way as it always does!!!) , but i have finally got my partner to agree to immigrate so I really want to know what chance we have?


thank you for your help

The general skilled migration program has been through many changes over the past twelve months, it is impossible to predict what it will look like in two years time and as such there is no guarantee that you job will still be on the Skilled Occupations List when you have gained your experience.

Another route, might be to seek employer sponsorship through the temporary visa (457) program - which won't have the stipulation of two years experience. In this scenario, you'd also be dependent on the employer to sponsor you for permanent residence.

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My random thoughts about emigrating to Australia :: http://www.gotmyvisa.co.uk

As Zultan indicates, the skilled visa requirements have undergone substantial change in recent times and what hopefully may be a final change is scheduled to take place effective July 2011.
Have a look at them via the What's New link on the SDkilled and other Professionals page via Workers - Visas & Immigration

The good news is that it may not be quite mission impossible for as the changes have been developed from significant review over the past couple of years, I would not expect there to be too many significant changes post July 2011 for the next couple of years.
The other good news could be that if you can get employment staraight away, you will fulfill your 12 months within 24 as soon as your 12 months experience is reached.

You could look for employer sponsorship and many local councils are often seeking social workers and I've read of people getting sponsorships in that area of work.
Getting PR via sponsorship is one possibility and some people with experience do also make an independent PR application simultaneously, either before or after a 457 TR application and so if you did get a 457 visa you could still make an independent application once you had 12 months experience from anywhere, the only issue then for you being that you would need to apply for an offshore PR visa and then take a short trip abroad when one was ready for granting.

Any employer sponsorship TR visa also means your temporary residency is dependent on you maintaining employment with a sponsor though you can change employers as long as a new employer first applies to be approved as a sponsor for the occupation you are employed.

If you previously had a skilled PR visa granted, a pity you did not at least make a validation trip and then it would have been good for five years.

Anyway, your partner and child can be added as secondary applicants to your visa application and she may find that there is a reasonable chance of teaching english in IELTS courses and could possibly be an upsurge in that in coming years as the new regulations for July 2011 do put more emphasis on english language ability.
If she has a flair for languages, Mandarin might be another string she wants to add to her bow, particularly if she feels interpreter/translation work is something she may want to get into.

The regulations do now also comprise a prioritisation approach and you may alsio with an independent application want to look at what statesd have Social Worker on their State Migration Plans for that will accord a higher priority though you may also find the states have more years of experience specified to get a sponsorship and so that then makes Employer sponsorship more attractive as that way you could be looking at less than a year processing time whereas for a SOL #3 occupation and #3 priority, it could be drawn out somewhat, especially as you can expect people will where possible be looking to get a higher priority and that will just mean lower priority applications may wait longer if not indefinitely.

The above topics are covered in the Whats New page.

Thank you both for the advice, all sounds like it is not just a pipe dream then

just fingers crossed that Social worker stays on the list but like you said if the list has been through substantial changes already hopefully it wont alter too much

im hoping as Social Worker always seems to be a profession that is always needed we should be ok

thank you both for the advice much appreciated

Any more info on what changes might be taking place in July? I had a quick google but im unable to find anything with any detail?

Looks like you an I are at a similar (very early!) stage Johnny, wishing you luck with your planned move

The Changes are under a heading on the Whats New page.