Promoting Financial Capability and Asset Building (FCAB) for All through Social Work Education: A Feasibility Study of the Financial First Responder (FFR) Training

Background and Purpose:

Despite the social work profession’s commitment to bring Financial Capability and Asset Building (FCAB) to all, few university programs are actually training students and workers. Published research on FCAB education typically argues for the need to include FCAB in curricula, and evaluations of FCAB implementation as a means to promote financial behavior are rare. Only two studies describe training practitioners to use FCAB with clients, while another two address teaching students in higher education settings to practice with their own finances. Our study is the first to evaluate the feasibility of teaching social work students to practice FCAB for themselves and with others. The Financial First Responder (FFR) is a free, online, service-learning based training that includes motivational interviewing content and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) tools to teach social work students how to help people experiencing financial stress.

Methods:

First-year undergraduate social work students were assigned the Financial First Responder (FFR) training for 5% of their grade in their required Community Organizing course. The course was taught by multiple instructors with various levels of FCAB expertise, at a Public University focused on a large, urban first-generation Latin/x community. 143 students logged into the learning management system, watched videos, responded to discussion questions, took a financial literacy test, and completed financial activities (acts). To receive the FFR certificate, they were required to submit reflection notes that described completing three acts for themselves and three with another person. Students filled out an evaluation upon training compltion. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed to determine the ease, usability, and likelihood for completion of the intervention, as fitting a developing intervention.

Results:

Reflecting the student body, FFR completers were mostly female (69%) and Latina (77%). Their average financial capability score was high moderate 5.75/8 (SD=1.40). The likelihood of completion was high: of 143 enrolled, 121 (84.6%) reported at least one act, and 106 (74.1%) completed all six acts and received the certificate. They evaluated FFR’s ease and usability highly, with high rankings of its overall quality (4.62/5) and likelihood they would recommend it to others (4.61/5). The vast majority (94%) of 121 participants who reported completing at least one act described learning something about their personal financial situation and/or financial skills (e.g. “Learning about prioritizing payments made me realize that I have to be careful and not spend money that I do not have. Credit cards are a good way to grow credit, but not to spend more money that you do not have.”)

Conclusions and Implications:

The FFR re-centers finances within social work education, in line with the profession’s Grand Challenges. The favorable outcomes suggest that the FFR is ready to be tested in other contexts, against comparison groups, and over time. A similar pedagogical structure with variants for other key financial moments or asset building products (e.g. child development accounts) could also be explored.