Working with participants - lessons from ReAct: focus on neurodiversity

Bajorek Z and Plowden Roberts C | | Institute for Employment Studies | Nov 2025

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The Restart prime providers are sponsoring the ERSA conference later this month. In the conference run up, the ReAct partnership is releasing a series of briefing papers highlighting key research from the collaboration and how the insights can inform solutions to Get Britain Working.

Restart has supported a wide range of participants over the last few years, and the Restart Prime Providers have developed a deep understanding of what works to personalise employment support services to varied groups. The ReAct partnership has conducted research into many of the key groups that engage with Restart, with research topics, amongst others, covering:

The research has highlighted the importance of adviser training, adviser skills, peer learning, building relationships and understanding the participant’s needs. Through collaboration, providers have gained a deeper understanding of how to deliver the flexibility essential to participant-centred support, recognising that needs vary across individuals and groups.

This briefing paper focuses on strategies to support neurodiverse participants into work. While the Get Britain Working White Paper does not explicitly reference neurodiversity, it does note that too many neurodivergent people are excluded from the labour market and that greater support is needed for people to get a job, upskill and remain in good work. In 2024, the ReAct partnership conducted research into neurodiversity, job search and work with aimed to:

Further the understanding of neurodiversity within the employment sector,
Highlight the enablers and barriers neurodivergent people experience when finding and entering employment, and
Identify good practice that shows how employment providers can best support neurodivergent participants into work.

This briefing paper looks at how the insights from the ReAct research can inform the development of the employment support workforce of the future to enable the Get Britain Working ambition in practice.

The ReAct Partnership is an industry-led, active collaboration to support a continuous improvement community in the Restart programme through action research, shared and iterative learning, and the development of applied, evidence-based resources. The Partnership is co-funded by the eight ‘prime providers’ for the Restart programme — FedCap Employment, AKG, G4S, Ingeus, Maximus, Reed, Seetec and Serco — and is being managed by the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), working alongside the Institute for Employability Professionals (IEP) and the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA).