[Gareth Richards, a working Wales careers adviser,
is sitting down wearing a light blue
Working Wales branded polo shirt.]
Hi, my name’s Gareth Richards, I’m a Working Wales careers
adviser for Careers Wales, and I am based in Caerphilly.
[We met with Gareth to discuss how
Working Wales and React+ can help people
who have recently
become unemployed, including those
who have been made redundant
or are under formal notice of redundancy.
Gareth laughs and puts on his glasses.
What's your advice to people
who are looking to get back into work
after being made redundant?]
As a Working Wales adviser,
when we’re working with
people who are under notice of redundancy or recently
made redundant, the biggest thing for them is knowing
all of a sudden what their options are.
Especially if they’ve been in the same job for a good few years.
They may have no idea of what’s available out there,
what support they can get, what options they have.
Through the interviews and the guidance,
a little bit of research,
We can help them then make the right choices
for them to access the right training.
[What support and funding can Working Wales offer?]
If you find yourself unemployed,
or under notice of redundancy or recently redundant,
then ReAct+ is a funding scheme with up to £1,500
available to any individual to either retrain or upskill.
We look at the skills and the experience a client has,
and then we look at the transferable skills
into what the labour market is offering.
You know, what jobs are out there.
Someone potentially, could have been in a job for
30 years and that job isn’t in high demand anymore,
but what skills have they got from that job that they can
then transfer to a new role?
If a client comes in and they know what they want to do
and they just need to know what qualifications
they need to do, then we can do qualification searches,
training provider searches.
We can access the ReAct+
funding grant then to pay for that training to
get them the qualifications they need
to apply for the jobs that they want to do.
[What practical support and advice
can Working Wales offer
to help people get back into work?]
There are other aspects of support.
There’s boundaries between where they are
and where they want to be.
We can help them develop a roadmap,
stepping stones to get from where they are to where they’d like to be,
and if there’s any boundaries or barriers in the way,
we can put support in place.
So a simple barrier might be that they haven’t got a CV,
they’ve never had a CV.
We can write CVs with them;
we’ve got specialists within Careers Wales who do that.
If it’s something a little bit more demanding,
we may have to then refer them to an external supporting agency,
and it may be sometimes it’s just funding
they need for those qualifications,
which is what ReAct+ specifically does.
[If you're facing redundancy.
React+ can offer you a free package of support
built around your specific needs
to get you back into work.
ReAct+
employment support
as unique as you.
Search Working Wales ReAct+
or call 0800 028 4844
Welsh Government logo
Careers Wales logo
Working Wales logo
European Social Fund logo]