You're entitled to apply for a Social Work Bursary if all of the following apply:
- The retainer is offered as an incentive to engage in employment with the retainer provider once the recipient qualifies as a social worker, and not as support towards the student’s social work training; and
- there is a documented contractual agreement between the retainer provider and the student, which sets out the student’s liability for paying back the retainer to the provider if they do not successfully complete their social work training and / or engage in employment with the retainer provider throughout the student’s social work training; and
- it is not funded by the Department for Education (DfE) through Social Work reform funds; and
- the student is studying on a college-based course in the UK and is not in receipt of funding from a public body (with the exception of funding from the Department for Education (DfE), government benefit agencies or hardship funding and bursaries from their HEI which are excluded).
If you do receive a retainer and all of the above points apply you will need to arrange for a bursary retainer declaration form to be completed which is available on your MyFunding account.