Delivering Financial Capability and Asset Building Curriculum: Strengthening the Competencies of Social Work Faculty

Background & Rationale: Promoting Financial Capability and Asset Building (FCAB) in Africa is an essential professional activity for social work to thrive in its mandate of advancing the socioeconomic well-being of individuals, families, groups, and communities. Considering the connectedness of socioeconomic problems faced by people, most of whose underlying causes are related to the lack of economic opportunities and its associated economic hardships, engendering FCAB can be one of the formidable means through which problems such as gender inequality, domestic violence, and unemployment can be addressed. Additionally, with the heightened need for individual initiatives to combat poverty in a period where state welfare has not been able to cushion many vulnerable groups, especially in developing countries, there is an urgent need for concerted efforts through which people can become self-sufficient. In this vein, FCAB which seeks to enhance financial literacy, inclusion, and access to financial resources, can be a viable tool for fostering the resiliency of many vulnerable individuals and groups. Yet, in many sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana, social work students do not have the adequate expertise required to impart their clients academically and professionally on finance-related topics despite their apparent influence on people’s situations. Considering the crucial role social work practitioners can play if equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills with which they can purposively strengthen the resilience of individuals, households, and communities by enhancing their financial capability and ability to build assets, there is an urgent need to integrate FCAB into the social work curriculum at universities in the sub-region.

Discussion: The presentation will therefore focus on the training of social work faculty members as the first step toward incorporating FCAB content into the curriculum. Building the capacity of faculty would enable them to gain confidence in teaching FCAB and become familiar with the (a) different ways that FCAB could be integrated into the social work curriculum, (b) educational opportunities, and (c) curricular resources and ideas for infusing FCAB content into existing curriculum. Such curricular innovations would empower faculty to offer students the opportunity to develop a deep and better understanding of environmental risks that affect the financial health of low-income individuals, families, groups, and communities as well as resources endeared to the building of FCAB.

Conclusion: Faculty capacity enhancement in FCAB could positively spill over to improve the financial knowledge of social work practitioners and clients. Furthermore, as faculty are equipped with expertise in FCAB and such knowledge is included in the social workers training program, more social workers can be trained to advance the course on limiting the problems associated with financial illiteracy, financial exclusion, and the lack of financial opportunities.