Daughter facing redundancy!! - advice please

daphnedill's advice is spot on - the only thing I would add is that if she can upgrade her skills so she can apply for better paid work in her home area afterwards - opportunities need to be carefully researched - it may be worth losing the JSA for the training period. Could you help tide her over at all?

Sometimes banks are quite willing to give you a loan for a fixed period if they can see you will have better prospects of employment after a course than before.

My daughter was made redundant when she had a 2 year old and a big mortgage and husband wasn't on great salary. She went to CAB and got lots of advise. She started up her own little business and today it's the best thing she could of done.Everything happens for a reason, it could be new happy beginnings.

I'm a teaching assistant, made redundant after 15 years. I took the redundancy money and went straight into another school aged 61! My experience was to my benefit even thought I was competing with many younger graduates for the post. It was nerve wracking to have to do interviews again but proves it can be done.

Encourage her to start looking for another job ASAP, talk to the Job Centre, and any local employment agencies about temp work. After 16 years she has a stable employment record (so her children have not created problems in doing her job) and should get a good reference. Is there someone at the school who can take her through the application process and show her how they look at applications these days, what to include etc, which is likely to be very different from when she was last applying for jobs?
You say it's a non-teaching role; could she apply for a similar job in other organisations, not just schools? If it's admin, that's a possibility, if she's been a teaching assistant, it's less easy. Child minding is certainly a possibility but I think her twins would be included in the number of children she is allowed to care for.
Encourage her to list all her qualifications and skills whether acquired through work or leisure activities (you may need to help with this as it's easy to dismiss things you're good at as being "unimportant") with examples of how she's learnt and shown them, this will be useful for a CV to show she can meet the requirements of another job.
If she's recently divorced, make sure she's getting child support from the father and that there's a formal agreement as to what he will pay.
It's difficult for you too but all you can do is support her and encourage her to see that redundancy is not the end, nor is it her fault, she has been a valuable employee for 16 years and will still be a valuable employee - just for someone else.

Hope someone can answer this for me, if in the notice period you find another job, do you still get your redundancy money?

ACAS can give you the answer to that - you should find a local number - we found them very helpful when we needed advice.

My DD's circumstances were almost identical to that of yours' - husband left her homeless and penniless with 3 children. We found that there is a local authority website for school vacancies. It is updated daily and included application forms, no CVs wanted. DD ended up with several interviews and job offers. the Primary school in her village increased the hours of the vacant position to suit her. Previous experience is much sought after. Her previous post from which she was made redundant was in an independant school. She was offered enough redundancy money to equate to her monthly salary to see her through to the start of her new job. She was already in receipt of benefits so they continued the same.
I hope your DD manages to achieve a similar result. It will be a worrying time. I took on the task of checking the internet for her and printing off details of anything remotely suitable. DD was grateful as being a working single parent is time consuming!

Kateyk The answer is "no" (I just asked my daughter, who works in HR), but reasonable employers will often negotiate a leaving date and redundancy package.

From "Money Advice Service":

Leaving your job early

If you’re offered a job and your new employer wants you to start before your redundancy notice ends, speak to your employer and see if you can leave early without losing your redundancy pay.

Put your request to leave early to your employer in writing saying when you want to leave.

If you leave early without your employer’s permission, you could lose some or all of your redundancy pay.

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/your-legal-rights-when-facing-redundancy#leaving-your-job-early

Ww is right. Consult ACAS.

My daughter has been made edundant twice. She is now in a job where she is happier than she has ever been. Your daughter needs to think about her transferable skills and put her CV on LinkedIn. Employers and agencies actively look on that website for suitable staff. It's how my daughter got her current post.

Thank you everyone, I am passing on all this information and tips, you are really valuable as sometimes the very obvious is missed in the upheaval and emotion, oh and having to get on with being a single parent as well leaves limited time to focus, you are all really helpful and I really appreciate your input, thank you again.

My daughter, after being made redundant, made a claim for JSA and during that same week was offered work on a zero hours contract, she explained this at her JSA first meeting and they told her she should sign off and when there was no more work available (she knew it was available term time only), then she could just reinitiate her claim via a fast track! She has attempted this today, but has had to complete a full application again and now await an appointment. She is not 100% mentally at the moment as the whole redundancy situation really knocked her for 6. It seems really unfair that when you really need a bit of help you have to jump through hoops. She made a claim for Housing Benefit at the same time back in April, they have said she should be entitled to something, but nothing come yet from that and a big rent increase hasn't help her budget much either. She did get some redundancy payment, has joint custody of 2 x 6 year olds, which makes it difficult detailing her situation on tick box forms. I have seen that there is a local CAB scheme to help with benefits, but she won't go for help. She has seen her GP as it has all affected her, he suggested she needed counselling, that of course took months, they suggested she needed 1 to 1, but instead they sent her to a group session of 30 people 3 weeks ago for a 6 week course (2 hours, once a week) which she is not finding useful at all. Blinking heck.......sorry just needed to write this down.