Supporting those who work to make people more financially capable

Affordability is the fastest growing issue for people who contact Housing Rights for advice. Increasingly, housing providers are also recognising the important role that they can play in supporting tenants’ financial wellbeing, by teaching them how to maximise their income and make wiser spending decisions.  

Housing Rights delivers a range of training that assists front line workers do this. In addition to delivering the popular Made of Money training to help those working with tenants  manage their money, Housing Rights has developed a new course around Financial Capability.

What is financial capability?

The Behavioural insights team released a report in May 2015 with recommendations on getting those in debt to engage earlier. They defined financial capability as;

“Financial literacy refers to a range of capabilities including planning ahead, an awareness of one’s financial situation, choosing financial products wisely, managing money and getting help and advice” Behavioural Insights Team May 2015

Why is financial capability important?

The debt advice charity StepChange said it had seen a 56% leap in the number of people seeking help with serious debt problems between 2012 and 2014, and that the average unsecured debt among those approaching it was now £15,000.

Recent figures from Citizen Advice suggest that almost 250,000 people in Northern Ireland are facing a debt time bomb

How can Housing Rights training help?

At Housing Rights, we offer two courses which are aimed at supporting people working with tenants, the community or families to budget their money and become more financially capable.

Our Financial Capability training, recently developed and delivered for Housing Executive staff, taps into the skills Housing officers already have. It looks at understanding the issues facing clients in debt, the causes and ways that tenants can be supported.

Recent feedback from the NIHE shows the value to staff attending the training;

“If the feedback is anything to go by I would say that staff fully enjoyed the training and we are confident that our customers will benefit from it.   It has been a delight working with you and the team from Housing Rights over the weeks, the expertise in delivering the course has made it a very worthwhile experience for NIHE staff.” NIHE 

Our Made of Money training takes an informal and interactive approach over two days to look at attitudes, communication, fears and values around the difficult topic of money management.

As well as delivering our courses to frontline workers, we can also deliver them direct to your tenants.  We delivered Made of Money for Clanmill Housing Association tenants in arrears last year, and the impact has been very positive. 

“Interesting results from the first cohort from last year. 3 of them have cleared arrears (over 3/4K) so quite a good result. And quite a few of the others have stuck to agreements.” Eddie Smith, Clamill Housing Association

Made of Money training participants themselves have also commented on the value of attending and the impact on managing money, credit, debt and budgeting;

“The Made of Money course was just what I was looking for…the discussion on priority and non-priority debts was particularly useful.  The exercises brought the information alive and made you think about the issues that we all face every day.  The course was pitched at just the right level that built on my existing knowledge but made me want to explore things further.  Thank you for a fantastic course.” Jacqueline Frazer, Belfast City Council

If you are interested in discussing your training needs, please contact our training team on [email protected]