Adult Learning Grants - Anything available?

@marliepanda: Easier said than done. Lots of people out of work and lots of students looking for evening/weekend jobs too. Sure that would be a good solution, but realistically it's probably not going to work out, especially given she's spent several years looking for a job prior to going back to college. It's an option we're open too, but it doesn't really solve the problem as you can't pay for the course in tiny instalments anyway. It's 2 large payments of £1,000+ each (August & December i think). There is the option of taking a loan and paying that off incrementally (which would have to be my parents securing it against the house i imagine, as she has no credit history), however we're looking at ways to reduce the fee's at the moment, we've got the option of a loan as a fallback

@Caroline_a - I guess my one question is what Animal Care course they did. At Level 2 i would agree with you, it's probably a saturated market and we already knew going into it that minimum wage was the expected salary of any job she would qualify for after Level 2, since it's such a basic course (it basically qualifies her to brush a dog and clip a rabbits nails kind of thing). This is why we are pushing her for Level 3, which would put her on the RCVS register and open up far more opportunities (we hope - the only thing we have to go on is an abundance of job adverts for vet nurses in the area, admittedly there re far less "dog groomer" style jobs listed which is what she is currently qualified to do).

We did discuss going straight into work (and all options are open at this stage - this is more an info gathering exercise so we can weigh up each option having the correct information). In fact she was given some volunteer forms, which as you say the job market is saturated and you need experience, so volunteering would help gain that experience to hopefully get a job later on. This is most likely the route she will go if we don't go down the L3 route.

I'd be interested in hearing if your experience of the over-saturated animal care job market is based on Level 2 (Dog groomer style jobs) or Level 3 (specifically the vet nurse specialism of L3).

@ceb1995 Thanks for that info. As i mentioned earlier this is more an info gathering exercise at the moment, and we have of course considered a loan as a fallback if we have to pay the full fee's and can't pay for it outright between ourselves. Thank you for the link though, it is her first level 3 and we weren't aware of the advanced learners loan - that seems like a much better way rather than a bank loan (since she doesn't have to repay until she gets a job), so if we have to get a loan, this seems like a good choice.

Thank you to everyone that has replied. As i mentioned in my replies above, i'm primarily looking for grants and funding that would reduce the fee amount more so than ways of covering the fee's. It's an information gathering exercise at this stage and we already have looked into the options of how to cover the fee and they are of course all on the table as potential routes.