Information for organisations
Community based organisations such as housing associations, credit unions, charities and churches are often well placed to assist those they support with their money management issues. Whether you are already running a fully established money advice project, are just starting to think about how you might support your clients/community with their money worries or just have a particular client that you need some advice with, we at Credit Action would love to help you with training, resources and support.
Why get involved?
For many organisations and individuals, money management becomes a priority as they see the problems their clients or neighbours are facing with money and how simple money management skills and strategies for dealing with debt would enrich their lives. It may help an organisation to meet its goals; by enabling a social care organisation enable their clients to live more independently, a women in a refuge centre to take control of her finances for the first time or a housing tenant to stay in his or her own home. For some, financial capability is also a business imperative, for a housing association, the eviction process can be costly, helping a tenant to budget for their rent and arrears might prevent this from being necessary and offer a win-win solution for association and tenant. It may simply be that you and your church or organisation see a need within your community and want to help.
Money management projects don't need to be complicated or expensive. Even the smallest organisation with limited resources can find ways to support their clients or community and make a real difference in people's lives. Below are some ideas on different approaches.
Getting started
You don't need to be a debt counsellor or a financial advisor to be able to help someone to take control of their money. There are many ways that you can help people with their money, from providing booklets, to running seminars, to providing one-to one support. Have a look at some of our ideas below.
It is important to note that if you decide that your organisation wants to provide debt advice, you will need a consumer credit licence, professional indemnity insurance and accredited training of advisors. However, there are other many ways that you and your organisation can assist clients without providing debt advice but be clear on the distinction on what constitutes advice in this context. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) have produced a useful document which will help you and your staff or volunteers to understand the kind of advice that they can give and where that advice should stop: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/financial_capability/pdfs/toptips.pdf.
If you would like to chat with someone about what might work within your particular situation, give us a call at the Credit Action office, we would love to talk your ideas through with you and discuss what has and has not worked for similar organisations.
What can Credit Action offer to help you?
As well as a voice at the end of the phone, Credit Action has various services that we provide to numerous organisations including churches, housing associations, homeless charities, local councils, credit unions and colleges to name just a few.
Training
Many of us feel that the way that we manage our own money leaves room for improvement and in consequence we lack the confidence to help others with their. Credit Action offer training to equip you to help others. Our IDEAL Budget Coaching in the Community course focuses on how to get alongside people, help them to do a meaningful budget and point them to additional help.
If you would like to run a money management seminar for your clients or community, we may be able to send a trainer to your organisation or provide you with money management materials to run sessions yourself.
For more details on our training, visit our training page.
Resources
Credit Action have a range of publications aimed at different groups and circumstances. Printed copies can be ordered via our website or by phoning the office or you can download them yourself for free. Take a look at our publications page for more details.
You may want to publicise the Spendometer to those you help. The spendometer is a downloadable budgeting tool for mobile phones, enabling people to budget as they go, an invaluable tool for those struggling to control their spending.
There is also a wealth of resources available on our website which you may find useful such as our money saving tips and our steps on avoiding repossession both on our resources pages and debt advice pages.
Click here for specific information for churches.
Further help
Faced with a question you can't answer? Need some help setting up your money services? Give us a call on 0207 380 3390 or send us an email to office@creditaction.org.uk.
Seven ways that you can help your community
These ideas range from simple to complex. What you do will obviously be defined by the needs of your clients and the resources available to you. Our advice is to start small and simple, allow confidence to grow and if the need develops, progress to more elaborate options.
1. Display a poster on your notice board or in your newsletter/magazine for a national debt counselling organisation and/or a local debt initiative. It is worth checking that the services provided are free of charge to the user. We strongly recommend that you only display details of the free services such as the Consumer Credit Counselling service (CCCS). If they have a free phone help line, display their number prominently. You could supplement this information by having small cards with the number of the service on it available to give away to people.
2. Make available a stock of more detailed information such as the Credit Action Moneymanuals which give advice on managing money and dealing with debt. See our publications page for more details. These can be ordered on line or downloaded free of charge from the publications page.
3. Consider running personal money management seminars either as standalone sessions or as part of an existing course such as life skills, preparation for employment, PHSE, marriage preparation or parenting courses. It can sometimes be difficult to recruit people to attend courses about money management. Incorporating these into existing courses or running them during regular events such as parent and toddler groups may help boost numbers. Individuals are more likely to attend a money management seminar if they have recognised that they have a money issue and are seeking to deal with this. If you need some support in running these sessions, contact us at Credit Action to arrange for a Credit Action trainer to deliver a session for you or to find out more about our Better Money Management six session training materials. Visit our training page for more details.
4. Train staff or volunteers in helping people to prepare a basic budget for household income and expenditure and in other issues. At Credit Action, we term this ‘budget coaching' and offer one day courses to teach these skills. Many people who are worried about money are unable to clearly define what money they have coming in and going out and are therefore haunted by an unquantified spectre, not knowing how much they owe or whether they actually have the money to pay those debts. Helping someone to prepare an accurate, realistic budget gives them back control of their money, banishing the spectre. It may provide valuable preparation as they prepare to get technical support and advice from a debt advice service or it may demonstrate that they can control their finances with careful spending. For the latter, debt advice may not be necessary but continued support from a budget coach may make the difference between sticking to the prepared budget or falling into debt. Whether the client requires debt advice or not, trained budget coaches provide a valuable service for pre-debt clients. Details of our IDEAL Budget Coaching in the Community course can be found on our training page.
5. Closely connected to budget coaching, you could provide a confidential befriending or supporting service for those facing up to the problem of personal debt. This option is different from a fully functional debt advice centre although there is some overlap. Much of what a full debt advice centre offers is around befriending although many debt advice services are overrun and unable to provide the level of support that more vulnerable clients may need or want. A befriending/support service provides people with the ability to grow the confidence to face up to the issues by supporting people as they talk about their situations, through to being alongside them as they contact a specialist service such as CCCS or accompanying them to an appointment with a local debt advice centre. This is essentially a handholding role and should not be underestimated; people in debt are often extremely anxious and even traumatised by the fear of losing their possessions and even homes. Equally, a lot of time can be saved when people in debt access a debt advice service if the issues have been talked about already and a truly reflective budget prepared. Volunteers/staff would not need to be trained in all the technical aspects of debt advice but would need to have awareness of the limits and are clear about the boundaries of what is being offered. Our IDEAL Budget Coaching in the Community course helps delegates to understand how they can help people in this way.
6. Set up a debt counselling service. Debt counselling is strictly regulated area and setting up a debt counselling service is a large undertaking. If you are thinking of setting up a debt counselling service, we recommend that you speak to Community Money Advice (CMA) who provide support to their network of member debt advice centres. They can provide advice on setting up a debt advice centre, training, advice, access to low cost professional indemnity insurance, training, administration software, centre mentoring and casework advice, centre visits for those ‘just looking' and ongoing information regarding changes in the money advice world. For more information go to their website: http://www.communitymoneyadvice.com/node/16.
7. Set up a credit union. If debt advice, counselling and management are curative approaches to debt, then credit unions are a preventative one. They operate on a non-profit basis for the mutual benefit of the members by providing a simple, personal and accessible savings/loan system. They are particularly helpful for those who do not meet normal commercial criteria for loans and who are often otherwise dependent on high cost or even illegal sources of credit. Again, setting up a credit union is a big undertaking, controlled by Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulation and governed by strict rules. A brief guide to Forming a Credit Union by David Lynn, secretary of the Lincolnshire Credit Union is available on our resources page. For further information on setting up a credit union contact the Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) http://www.abcul.coop/page/about/settingup.cfm or the FSA http://www.fsa.gov.uk/smallfirms/your_firm_type/credit/index.shtml.
