ReAct funding

Financial support if you’re made redundant

ReAct is a funding scheme provided by the Welsh Government for anyone who’s facing redundancy and lives in Wales.

It’s a grant that funds qualifications and courses to aid your personal development, allowing you to bring your skills up-to-date and add valuable qualifications to your CV.

ReAct awards up to £1,500 to fund your training. You can split the funding between numerous courses and it can help you cover expenses while you train, like childcare and travel, if you need extra support.

All you have to do is chat to an adviser at Careers Wales who’ll discuss your options, complete your funding paperwork and put you in touch with a training provider – that’s where we come in.

Find a specialist ReAct training provider

There are a number of training providers helping the Welsh Government and Careers Wales to deliver the ReAct retraining programme. We specialise in certain industries and topics, so when you’re shopping around for the right course, make sure you book with the right training provider too. 

If you train with us, we’ll strengthen your skills in our areas of expertise:

• Leadership and management
• Health and safety
• Business skills
• Education and training
• Customer service
• Quality management 

Why book a ReAct course with TSW?

We’re a trusted and established training provider. We’ve guided learners to meet and exceed their career goals for more than 50 years. Our expertise and experience put us in a prime position to help hundreds of workers who’ve been made redundant. 

Our learners recommend us for our chosen awarding bodies, people and one-to-one service. Our whole team is poised to help you from the moment you’re put on notice of redundancy. They’ll direct you towards market-leading qualifications that make your CV competitive in the job market and give you the confidence to get back to work. 

We promise that our course theory will translate to your new workplace. Learning transfer is at the heart of everything we do. That means your newly found skills are best practice, relevant, noticeable, impressive and impactful.

How can I access the Welsh Government’s ReAct fund?

1. Call Careers Wales on 0800 028 4844 and make an appointment

Once you’re booked in, all you need to do is turn up for a chat. It’s a collaboration designed to get you where you want to go. You’ll have one-to-one support from a specialist guidance adviser, who’ll help you look at your CV, discuss your work experience and map out your career ahead. They’ll advise which courses you’d benefit from and you can tell them which skills you’d like to develop.

2. Help Careers Wales to fill out your application

Next up, you’ll apply to the Welsh Government to access the £1,500 grant. Careers Wales fills out the forms on your behalf based on what you want to do and what’s discussed in your meeting. You won’t get bogged down filling out pages of complicated questions, so don’t let a bit of admin put you off applying.

3. Pick who you want to deliver your course

There are a number of training providers that are ready to deliver courses through the ReAct retraining programme. We’re one of them! If you like the look of our courses, or perhaps you’ve worked with one of our trainers before and enjoy learning with us, tell us you’ve secured the grant and which course you want to do. We’ll save you a place.

4. The Welsh Government pays your course fees

We liaise directly with Careers Wales and the Welsh Government, so the billing process happens completely behind the scenes. You can just relax into your course, focus on learning and getting back into the job market.

Your ReAct retraining experience

Steve, Rob and Sara all have very different working backgrounds, but all three came to TSW shortly after being made redundant to retrain. Watch their inspirational stories to help you make a decision about your path ahead. 

After a career in management spanning 20 years, ReAct gave Rob the ideal opportunity to develop new qualifications.

Employed at a leading supermarket from the age of 19, Rob worked his way up the career ladder to senior management level, when he was made redundant.

After discovering ReAct, Rob chose to gain new qualifications in BTEC, TAQA and IOSH, before setting up his own business.

View Our Education and Training Courses

Learn how Sara up-skilled for a new job after being made redundant.

Sara had previously worked within the housing sector as a service improvement officer for over 20 years before she was faced with redundancy.

A colleague recommended ReAct to Sara and following advice from Careers Wales, she decided to undertake an ILM 5 course with TSW. She is now employed as an Assistant Project Manager.

View Our Leadership and Management Courses

Find out how Steve went from redundancy and no qualifications to owning his own Health and Safety business.

Previously a groundworker with no qualifications, when Steve found out he was facing redundancy, he faced an uncertain future.

After hearing about ReAct through his employer, Steve visited Careers Wales before deciding to undertake NEBOSH qualifications with TSW and develop a new career in the water and gas industry.

Learn About Our Health and Safety Courses

Coronavirus and ReAct training courses

We want you to feel comfortable while you learn, particularly in light of COVID-19.

We believe nothing should stand in the way of your career development, so we made a commitment to bring you flexible training options.

From March 2020, we were able to offer our learners a choice – to join a live virtual course, or a classroom-based course. All you have to do is pick the safest option for you.

In the classroom

If you want to join us in person, we’re carefully observing social distancing at our training venues and there are extra health and safety measure, like hand sanitising systems and a one-way system, to keep you safe while you train. 

Virtual learning

If you’d feel more comfortable learning from a distance, we promise you’ll get the same quality learning experience via Microsoft Teams. When the session ends, you can dive into a state-of-the-art virtual learning environment.

The virtual training sessions are hosted live by our trusted trainers and course leaders. You’ll share the virtual classroom with a small group of learners, so it feels like a focused and personalised session.

Who is my trainer?

We work with recognised industry experts to lead and shape our courses. We actively seek out academically qualified people who have rolled up their sleeves to get the practical experiences too. 

We also like to work with people who have an interesting story to tell. Many of them have made a huge career change, others have been made redundant and have worked their way to the top of a new profession.

You’ll see yourself in our people. They’re open to discussion and make learning applicable to your real working world.

Meet Luke

“I started my career as a reserve in the West Mercia Police, I’ve even dabbled at the BBC. But I found my real passion for health and safety in the early 90s and never looked back. Now, I’m a fellow in the Royal Society for Public Health and a chartered member of IOSH. I even have a PGCE. But I’ve gained so much from being in the thick of it in construction sites and consulting with businesses. No training session is the same – we start with the syllabus, but it’s personalised as each class brings something new to the table and it prompts an anecdote (or 10). You won’t leave my training without a story to tell and a practical example of how health and safety theory works in practice.”

Luke Pitt – Head of Health and Safety

Funding for multiple courses

The ReAct funding could support you through more than one training course. One of our learners, Melanie Spencer, joined our IOSH Managing Safely, BTEC Level 3 and ILM Level 3 courses following Careers Wales’ assessment and recommendations. After the training, she went on to secure a new role at a new company.

“I just wanted to thank you and your staff at TSW for all the support over the last few months. I am really grateful for your recommendations, course-wise. The three courses I attended were a perfect fit for me and I was super impressed by the standard of all the trainers involved. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend TSW to anyone looking for a training facilitator.”

Training for a career change

Redundancy can be your new beginning. With the help of Careers Wales and TSW, you can have the chance to think about your career under the guidance of training specialists. We can help you realise what you really want from your job and where you want to be in the future.

If you want a career change, we can build your training programme around that, or we can strengthen your existing skills. One of our health and safety ReAct learners, Geraint Jenkins, saw an opportunity to reflect on his career so far and pursue the areas that he really enjoyed 

“On being made redundant from my position of Parks Manager with a local authority, I took time to think about the parts of the job that I enjoyed. I played a major role in the department’s health and safety group which was responsible for risk assessments, safe systems of work, compiling the staff safety handbook and training staff.

“I spoke to Careers Wales to find out what opportunities were available to develop my options for a career in health and safety, and add knowledge to my current training portfolio in land-based subjects. I was able to secure funding via REACT and enrolled myself on to a NEBOSH General Certificate training at TSW”

Get the right support 

As well as working closely with the Welsh Government and Careers Wales to help you access funding, we also have supportive redundancy articles and guides focused on assertiveness, communication and confidence. Read more:

• The back to work bucket list will help rebuild your confidence when redundancy makes you feel expendable
• Our assertiveness guide shows you how to ask for what you need and exit your job on your terms

Am I eligible for ReAct funding?

Support under the ReAct scheme is available for individuals who live in Wales and you:

• Became unemployed in the last three months as a result of redundancy
• Are currently unemployed
• Have not been in continuous employment for six weeks or more since being made redundant
• Are currently under notice of redundancy; and
• Have not undertaken any publicly funded training since being made redundant, including the work-based learning suite of programmes.

What support is available?

Under the ReAct scheme, the following financial support is available:

• Up to £1,500 towards the cost of training
• Help with the costs of travelling to and from training courses
• Overnight accommodation costs (where suitable and necessary)
• A contribution towards childcare costs whilst training
• Help with the cost of equipment for individuals with a learning difficulty, disability, or a work-limiting health condition

Can the fund be split across multiple courses?

Yes, the ReAct find will pay up to £1,500 and can be used to fund a number of different courses.

How to pick a training course

The right course and training programme will give you confidence that you can do your job well. Or, give you a strong springboard to start a completely new career.

Try to think about what you enjoyed doing at work. You could enhance the aspects of the last job you really liked, or choose to study something completely different.

Read our training and redundancy guide to help you pick a course, but Careers Wales can help you make an informed choice.

Is ReAct funding available when I’m on furlough?

If you’re on furlough and you haven’t been made redundant, you can’t access the ReAct retraining fund yet. If you suspect you’ll be made redundant, there’s no harm looking at what professional development courses you’d like to take in preparation for a Careers Wales interview. 

Am I eligible for ReAct if I’m made redundant while on maternity, paternity or shared leave?

Yes. Your eligibility is based purely on the criteria described above and doesn’t take into account whether you were claiming statutory pay when you were made redundant. 

Can I access ReAct if I have savings?

Yes. The ReAct fund isn’t means-tested, so whether you have a bank vault with your name on, or a modest piggy bank in the drawer, you’re eligible for the fund.

Will the ReAct grant affect my redundancy benefits?

No. The grant isn’t awarded based on any other income. If you’re claiming redundancy pay and/or you’ve been awarded a payout because you were employed by the same employer for two years or more, it won’t affect the ReAct funding programme.

How soon can I apply for ReAct after being made redundant?

Straightaway! Call Careers Wales on 0800 028 4844 and get your appointment booked.

How many TSW courses are covered by ReAct?

All of our accredited courses are covered by the ReAct fund, up to the value of £1,500.