state certification of financial ed programs

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: kjacobs@ccrhv.org

Is anyone aware of any states that have created a "certification" program
for the providers of financial education in an effort to help consumers
avoid untrained providers or worse, scammers? I am curious about both
content standardization as well as provider certification as stipulated by
the state. And if so, what department(s) in your state regulate this
process - thanks in advance for any information you may have.



Kim Jacobs

Executive Director

Community Capital Resources

7 W. Cross Street

Hawthorne, NY 10532

914 747 8020 Ext. 12

914 747 2049 fax

kjacobs@ccrhv.org



Celebrating 20 years of Economic Empowerment!

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: Bill@RunontheBank.net


Is anyone aware of any states that have created a "certification"
program for the providers of financial education in an effort to help
consumers avoid untrained providers or worse, scammers? I am curious
about both content standardization as well as provider certification as
stipulated by the state. And if so, what department(s) in your state
regulate this process - thanks in advance for any information you may
have.
Kim Jacobs
Executive Director
Community Capital Resources
7 W. Cross Street
Hawthorne, NY 10532
914 747 8020 Ext. 12
914 747 2049 fax
kjacobs@ccrhv.org

From: "Curt Weil" <curt@laseckeweil.com>
I’m not aware of any state certifications, and
the Foundation For Financial Planning has loads
of programs, developed by non-profits, that have
been vetted by professionals.
<http://www.foundation-finplan.org/>h...n-finplan.org/
Curt Weil, CFP®, President
Lasecke Weil Wealth Advisory Group, LLC
624 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301-2019
(650-323-3700 / <http://www.laseckeweil.com>www.laseckeweil.com
Celebrating 43 Years of Service! 1967-2010
P Please consider the environment before printing this email.

From: "Ross H. Yednock" <yednock@cedam.info>
Michigan does have standards... They are in the
state board of Ed. However foreclosure an debit
counselors are wihin the housing agency.

From: Hassan Nicholas <hassan.nicholas@gmail.com>
Hi Kim,
Our agency is currently involved with an effort from United Way of Greater
Los Angeles and collaboration of various institutions and organizations
through the FDIC's Alliance for Economic Inclusion to develop a
certification program for financial education providers. The certification,
along with the formation of the Financial Literacy Council of Los Angeles,
aims to create a clearinghouse of sorts for financial education providers as
well as promote standardization and accountability. If you are interested I
can direct you to a point person involved in these discussions.
Hassan Nicholas
323.846.1434 / hnicholas@cfrc.net
Asset Development
Community Financial Resource Center
http://www.cfrc.net
http://www.commecondev.wordpress.com
http://www.twitter.com/BankOnLA

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: ECarter@cahs.org

I am also interested in this topic. We currently run a statewide
financial education program (www.ctmoney.org) that screens our volunteer
instructors and their curriculum prior to admittance in the classroom.
This is not as formal a process as a certification.



If you state department of education is certifying the financial
instructors does the certification only apply to education occurring in
the public school system? Other than housing counseling, are their
standards that exist for education occurring in private/public
organizations?



Ellen Carter
Financial Education Programs Coordinator
Connecticut Association for Human Services
110 Bartholomew Ave, Suite 4030
Hartford, CT 06106
www.cahs.org <http://www.cahs.org/> ; www.ctmoney.org

ecarter@cahs.org <mailto:ecarter@cahs.org>
phone. 860.951.2212, ext. 230
fax.860.951.6511

________________________________

From: bounce-5665659-8419187@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-5665659-8419187@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of William
Myers
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 7:02 PM
To: communitydevelopmentbanking-l@cornell.edu
Subject: RE: state certification of financial ed programs



Is anyone aware of any states that have created a
"certification"
program for the providers of financial education in an effort to
help
consumers avoid untrained providers or worse, scammers? I am
curious
about both content standardization as well as provider
certification as
stipulated by the state. And if so, what department(s) in your
state
regulate this process - thanks in advance for any information
you may
have.
Kim Jacobs
Executive Director
Community Capital Resources
7 W. Cross Street
Hawthorne, NY 10532
914 747 8020 Ext. 12
914 747 2049 fax
kjacobs@ccrhv.org





From: "Curt Weil" <curt@laseckeweil.com>
I'm not aware of any state certifications, and the Foundation For
Financial Planning has loads of programs, developed by non-profits, that
have been vetted by professionals. http://www.foundation-finplan.org/
Curt Weil, CFP(r), President
Lasecke Weil Wealth Advisory Group, LLC
624 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301-2019
* 650-323-3700 / www.laseckeweil.com
Celebrating 43 Years of Service! 1967-2010
P Please consider the environment before printing this email.





From: "Ross H. Yednock" <yednock@cedam.info>
Michigan does have standards... They are in the state board of Ed.
However foreclosure an debit counselors are wihin the housing agency.





From: Hassan Nicholas <hassan.nicholas@gmail.com>
Hi Kim,
Our agency is currently involved with an effort from United Way of
Greater
Los Angeles and collaboration of various institutions and organizations
through the FDIC's Alliance for Economic Inclusion to develop a
certification program for financial education providers. The
certification,
along with the formation of the Financial Literacy Council of Los
Angeles,
aims to create a clearinghouse of sorts for financial education
providers as
well as promote standardization and accountability. If you are
interested I
can direct you to a point person involved in these discussions.
Hassan Nicholas
323.846.1434 / hnicholas@cfrc.net
Asset Development
Community Financial Resource Center
http://www.cfrc.net <http://www.cfrc.net/>
http://www.commecondev.wordpress.com
<http://www.commecondev.wordpress.com/>
http://www.twitter.com/BankOnLA

CDB list instructions http://www.runonthebank.net/cdblist.htm

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: Bill@RunontheBank.net


From: Sue Southon <ssouthon@earthlink.net>
Michigan provides a certification for
housing counseling/financial education
providers. Check Michigan State Housing
Development Authority website <mshda.gov> for more information.

From: "Rice, Karen" <KRice@langleyfcu.org>
All I’ve heard of is the National Foundation for
Credit Counseling (NFCC). http://www.nfcc.org/
Karen Rice | Sr= . Admin. Specialist | Langley Federal Credit Union
721 Lakefront Commons, Suite 400 | Newport News, VA 23606
Direct: (757) 643-8717 | Fax: (757) 596-1992 | Email: krice@langleyfcu.org
Serving members for a lifetime.

From: "Deanne Figueras" <dfigueras@wescorp.org>
To “Certify” Educational courses there
are a couple of great resources:
1) NASBA – National Association of State
Boards of Accountancy – www.nasba.org
- Download the Statement on Standards for
Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Programs
2) NACHA – ;The Electronic Payments Association – www.nacha.org
= - AAP Licensing of Electronic Payments Courses
- http://www.nacha.org/c/Crslicens.cfm
Both offer standards and guidelines an=
d their certification that the courses adhere to
those guidelines; however, you must include the
disclaimer that “State Boards” have the final
authority on any continuing education toward a
board certification, such as a CPA or CFA. NACHA
courses are specifically for the AAP designation.
Their program has recognized 3,500+ ACH professionals.
There is a small fee for both
organizations based on the number of courses
offered. They also have a listing of approved
sponsors/providers on their websites, as well as
a CPE online tracker for individuals.
I hope this information helps.
Deanne Figueras, CMP
Manager, Member Education & Events
WesCorp
(800) 442-4366, ext. 6465

From: "Barber, Thomas - Woodward, OK" <Thomas.Barber@ok.usda.gov>
I think most state have a home buyer
education program-this is required before closing
a single family home loan with USDA rural
development and is a pretty good tool to advise
home buyers about seller realtors, buyer
realtors, different financing options, care of the home after purchase etc

From: "Chase, Holly" <hollychase@state.pa.us>
The Pennsylvania Office of Financial
Education has created a directory of widely
available and reputable certification and
training programs for financial educators and
counselors. The directory can be downloaded from
the office's website, Your Money's Best Friend,
at: http://www.moneysbestfriend.com/default.aspx?id=3D300
This is not an all inclusive listing but
you will notice that each program provider is an
independent, non-profit organization or
institution; certifications for members of a
specific affiliation, such as the NFCC, are not
included because of their limited
availability. Listing in the directory does not
imply endorsement by the Office of Financial Education.
Holly A. Chase | Financial Education Specialist
Pennsylvania Office of Financial Education
[cid:image001.jpg@01CAE6B8.B3DC2340]
17 N. Second Street, 13th Fl. | Harrisburg, PA 17101
Phone: 717-783-2498 | Fax: 717-214-0808
hollychase@state.pa.us<mailto:hollychase@state.pa. us>
| www.moneysbestfriend.com
**New on our website: Resources for Educators**

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: kjacobs@ccrhv.org

Wow! Thanks to all who have responded to my inquiry about state standards
for Financial Education curricula and certification of trainers. My purpose
in pursuing this line of inquiry was to see if folks in other parts of the
country share my concern about the quality and accuracy of the information
that is being provided to those who come to financial education workshops or
for counseling. Many asked that I post what I learned and so here it is:



WHY I CARE

Those seeking this type of information are often at a difficult point in
their lives and consequently, vulnerable to those scam artists who
perennially prey on the poor and desperate. How many foreclosure scams have
we already heard about? Or those offers to get you a better credit score
(for a modest fee of course).



Further, as Financial Education becomes more established as a credential
(for example, those filing bankruptcy are now required have to have some
"financial education," some governmental programs now require it in order
to be eligible, some banks have reportedly been persuaded to offer second
chance accounts for those who have had it, etc) the risk of more unqualified
players deciding to "sell" these services increases.



CURRICULUM STANDARDS



And it begs the question: what qualifies as having had "financial ed" -
is just doing a budget enough? Or just pulling your credit score? Or does
it have to be so comprehensive that your client can reasonably expound on
the Fed's Open Market operations?! It seems that somewhere in there,
reasonable, experienced practitioners can agree on what are the key personal
financial management principles (curriculum standardization) that a client
should have mastered in order to be empowered to make sound decisions
regarding their finances. I am not suggesting that every trainer has to use
the same book, or cover all the material at each session, but rather, that
if someone says they went to a workshop on credit, for example, that there
is a generally accepted understanding of what they should now know.



TRAINER QUALIFICATIONS



And the second part of the equation is who is qualified to offer that
information? Is it ok for anyone who reads a couple of articles to
represent themselves as financial education providers? Admittedly, when we
began our program ten years ago, we were not trained. We did immediately
begin to spend agency resources to get trained and now dedicate a
substantial portion of our Financial Ed budget to on-going education in the
form of conferences and training, publications, videos, listservs, etc. We
have become certified ourselves by one of the nationally recognized agencies
and we take very seriously our responsibility to know what we are talking
about and to offer people accurate, correct information so that we are not
party to any financial missteps.



In New York State, a few years ago, the State Banking Department and the
State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) adopted standards for
homebuyer education (other states seem to have adopted this practice as
well, see below) - both curriculum content and accreditation standards for
trainers. The NYS Coalition for Excellence in Homebuyer Education
(www.cxhe.wordpress.com ) worked to develop these standards and then
encouraged agencies to sign on agreeing to them. It is a little easier for
home buyer counseling, because HUD certifies home buyer counselors through
the Neighborworks program (and perhaps others, sorry, we are not in that
part of the business, so I can't speak definitively on that subject). My
thought is that there may be a host of existing accreditation entities for
financial ed that states could use in a similar manner (see NFCC and AFCPE
below as suggestions, and there may be others).



WHAT I LEARNED

In any event, I have learned a lot and many of you asked me to share what I
learned. So here goes:



Thanks to the many of you who offered up your excellent curriculum as an
example of the type of 'standardized" curricula that provides comprehensive
coverage of the content that a state would potentially adopt. There are
lots of great examples out there and they demonstrate exactly the type of
accurate, comprehensive training that I hope everyone who takes a financial
ed class is getting.



Thanks as well to those who mentioned AFCPE (www.afcpe.org )and NFCC
(www.nfcc.org )as accrediting agencies. Both provide certification
processes that require the applicant to demonstrate thorough knowledge of
the material and both are agencies acceptable to the bankruptcy courts.
Some also mentioned the Certified Financial Planner and the Accredited
Financial Advisor designations which folks in the financial services (i.e.
investment advisors) secure after taking exams to demonstrate competency.



As an aside, I would note that we have done some great programs with
volunteers from our local Financial Planning Association and while they have
an incredible depth of knowledge on investment vehicles and financial
planning, they were less familiar with the myriad of social programs that
many of our clients need to tap into to make their fragile budgets work
(i.e. VITA, SNAP, rental assistance, Medicaid, etc) and they have little
experience with debt counseling. Not that they couldn't be trained, just
that the professional designations they have leave them a little unschooled
in dealing with people who have lots of debt and few assets. All of which is
a long way of saying that I am not sure that I would put Certified Financial
Planner and Accredited Financial Advisor on my "automatically" credentialed
list for financial education.



LOS ANGELES (hnicholas@cfrc.net )

I heard from our colleague in LA who noted that his agency is currently
involved with an effort with United Way of Greater Los Angeles and
collaboration of various institutions and organization through the FDIC's
Alliance for Economic Inclusion to develop a certification program for
financial education providers. The certification, along with the formation
of the Financial Literacy Council of Los Angeles, aims to create a
clearinghouse of sorts for financial education providers as well as promote
standardization and accountability.



NEW YORK CITY

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs/Office of Financial
Empowerment has created a nice directory of service providers. It's not
licensing, but they do have some quality checks and balances. I have
personally worked with OFE and they are terrific, doing a lot of ground
breaking work in Financial Ed including valuable research papers and their
website is worth a look for those not familiar:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/ofe/html/home/home.shtml



INDIANA (sreeve@ihcda.in.gov)

The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority created a
certification program primarily for pre-purchase counseling. The Housing
Authority paid for agencies to get the training, but contracted out the
actual training to others. There is now a certification for foreclosure
counseling as well. The training is about 60 hours in length and they have
85 active and an additional 30 or so less active individuals certified.
They noted that an additional benefit of the certification process is that
is has served as a kind of umbrella that helped to bring these agencies
together around various consumer finance issues.



MICHIGAN (Yednock@cedam.info )

There are standards for Financial Education in the state Board of Ed (see
Texas below). Standards for foreclosure prevention and debt counseling are
located in the state housing agency.



MINNESOTA (FerstanA@unitedwaytwincities.org )

Minnesota is in the process of creating an online training and certification
course through the University of Minnesota, Family Social Science Department
and the University of Minnesota Extension. It is in the very early stages,
but they hope to have it up and running by year three. It will be for human
service providers, Social Work students and possibly students in the
secondary education teaching program. It will be regulated through the
University.



PENNSYLVANIA (DKelly@gppuac.org) & (hollychase@state.pa.us )

In the Philadelphia area there is a consortium of institutions doing
community financial education called the Financial Education Network of SE
PA. Among the partners are the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the PA
Department of Banking, several banks, Consumer Credit Counseling Services
and Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. They hold several
training conferences each year at the Fed.



This group notes that periodically, the subject of certifying community
financial educators comes up. Initially, it was prompted by the idea that
members of the community that they serve could be trained to educate their
peers. A certification process would give them credentials that would be at
the least recognized by the major players in the region. An additional
benefit might be that such a credential might serve as a stepping stone for
people into the financial services industry. More recently, the Financial
Education Department of the PA Department of Banking has begun to explore
this idea as a state action, but it is still in the discussion stage.



At this time, the issue is coming up again because of reported incidents of
fraudulent financial educators who use financial education as a shill for
some type of scam. They have not documented the extent of the problem yet,
but speculate that when they do it may lead to a push for legislative
hearings and possible regulations establishing licensing for financial
educators.



TEXAS (jillpharr@friendsofconsumerfreedom.org )

Our Texas colleague responded that the state had mandated financial
education as part of the high school curriculum and had specifically
identified 11 points of information that were to be conveyed.



I know that New York has also mandated Financial Education in high school
however, our survey of local high schools indicates that this training is
included in the mandatory semester of Economics, taken by seniors and
focuses mostly on Macroeconomics rather than personal financial management.
We got lots of responses like, "oh yes, we play the stock market game," when
what I am more concerned about is do the kids know how to write a check,
balance a checkbook or read a credit card offer ? NEFE (www.nefe.org ),
NFTE (www.nfte.com ) , Jumpstart (www.jumpstart.org )and others have
wonderful curricula for youth, I just don't often see it well integrated
into economics lesson plans, at least in our communities.



And of course, this whole discussion does not even begin to address the idea
of what constitutes effective financial education. Philip Heckman
(pheckman@cuna.coop ) from the Credit Union National Association, Inc.
noted that there is currently an examination of effectiveness by researchers
at the University of Wisconsin - Madison to evaluate a pre-school
curriculum that is in use. A paragraph from Phase One of the research,
which to me seems to be equally true of adults, states:



"Few financial literacy programs are explicit about how the concepts taught
and the lessons developed are expected to improve financial knowledge and
rarely discuss the expected relationship between early financial education
and later financial behavior. There has been virtually no rigorous
evaluation of these programs. This is not to say that some of the programs
we found - and there are lots of them - may not improve children's ability
to later become better financial decision makers. However, financial
literacy programs tend to concentrate on very concrete lessons without
apparent consideration of what are the underlying concepts and the behavior
and timing of behaviors that seek to be improved with this education."



CONCLUSION

So there you have it. I hope that you found it instructive, as I did.
Clearly there are some similarities - many states (including my own) have
already reached consensus on this issue as it relates to either home
purchase or foreclosure. Far fewer entities have set standards for
financial education in a broader context.

Perhaps it is because the effect of bad home ownership counseling is pretty
clear and dramatic. However, I would venture that the impacts of bad
financial advice on topics like which debts to pay, what types of investment
to choose in your 401(k) and what really impacts your credit score, costs
Americans millions of dollars each year. Unfortunately, because these
failures are less dramatically obvious, this bad information doesn't command
the same attention as bad home buying counselors.



But when I think of the working poor families that we see day after day at
my agency, who are struggling so hard to get ahead, I think that we have to
realize the cost of this bad information is not just monetary, although that
is bad enough for financially fragile families, but it also has a tremendous
cost in terms of the loss of hope for a better future that they once had.
I hope this little research project has sparked your interest in
standardization and certification (and kudos to the State of Indiana for
putting their money on the table to make it happen!)



Hope to hear more about this over the next few months. I will keep you
posted if anything further develops in NY. Thanks again for all the
feedback -



Kim Jacobs

Executive Director

Community Capital Resources

7 W. Cross Street

Hawthorne, NY 10532

914 747 8020 Ext. 12

914 747 2049 fax

kjacobs@ccrhv.org





Celebrating 20 years of Economic Empowerment!

[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: hassan.nicholas@gmail.com

Kim:

It was thoughtful of you to bring this question to the group and follow up
with your findings. I, personally, find this area of financial planning
interesting. As I have mentioned to some of you individually, what the AEI
and Financial Literacy Council of LA hopes to achieve is training for
financial education facilitators and counselors that prepares them to
address the needs of the low-income household. As you mentioned, the clients
are unique in that to bring them to economic stability (which is the primary
goal), there must be some leveraging of community and government resources -
which is why the movement in Los Angeles has included heavily community
organizations, nonprofit Community Development Financial Institutions (like
ours) as well as financial institutions. On the local level, I'm sure we
would find our communities have specific challenges or needs. For instance,
since so much of our clients are Spanish-speaking with varying types of
legal statuses, a cultural sensitivity must be taken into account as well as
knowledge of "supportive services" such as immigration, renter's rights,
child care...the list goes on.

Lastly, we would like to see standardization and accountability brought to
this field.

Kim, I look forward to any further developments out of NY and for the group
I would love to keep this discussion "on line" - as I am excited to see
certification programs come to fruition nationwide as we develop ours.

Thanks to all.

All the best,

Hassan Nicholas
Asset Development & Financial Empowerment
Community Financial Resouce Center
4060 So. Figueroa St.
Los Angeles, CA 90037
www.cfrc.net
www.commecondev.wordpress.com
hnicholas@cfrc.net
323.846.1434

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Kim Jacobs <kjacobs@ccrhv.org> wrote:

Wow! Thanks to all who have responded to my inquiry about state
standards for Financial Education curricula and certification of trainers.
My purpose in pursuing this line of inquiry was to see if folks in other
parts of the country share my concern about the quality and accuracy of the
information that is being provided to those who come to financial education
workshops or for counseling. Many asked that I post what I learned and so
here it is:



WHY I CARE

Those seeking this type of information are often at a difficult point in
their lives and consequently, vulnerable to those scam artists who
perennially prey on the poor and desperate. How many foreclosure scams have
we already heard about? Or those offers to get you a better credit score
(for a modest fee of course).



Further, as Financial Education becomes more established as a credential
(for example, those filing bankruptcy are now required have to have some
“financial education,� some governmental programs now require it in order
to be eligible, some banks have reportedly been persuaded to offer second
chance accounts for those who have had it, etc) the risk of more unqualified
players deciding to “sell� these services increases.



CURRICULUM STANDARDS



And it begs the question: what qualifies as having had “financial ed� -
is just doing a budget enough? Or just pulling your credit score? Or does
it have to be so comprehensive that your client can reasonably expound on
the Fed’s Open Market operations?! It seems that somewhere in there,
reasonable, experienced practitioners can agree on what are the *key
personal financial management principles* (curriculum standardization)
that a client should have mastered in order to be empowered to make sound
decisions regarding their finances. I am not suggesting that every trainer
has to use the same book, or cover all the material at each session, but
rather, that if someone says they went to a workshop on credit, for example,
that there is a generally accepted understanding of what they should now
know.



TRAINER QUALIFICATIONS



And the second part of the equation is *who is qualified* to offer that
information? Is it ok for anyone who reads a couple of articles to
represent themselves as financial education providers? Admittedly, when we
began our program ten years ago, we were not trained. We did immediately
begin to spend agency resources to get trained and now dedicate a
substantial portion of our Financial Ed budget to on-going education in the
form of conferences and training, publications, videos, listservs, etc. We
have become certified ourselves by one of the nationally recognized agencies
and we take very seriously our responsibility to know what we are talking
about and to offer people accurate, correct information so that we are not
party to any financial missteps.



In New York State, a few years ago, the State Banking Department and the
State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) adopted standards for
homebuyer education (other states seem to have adopted this practice as
well, see below) – both curriculum content and accreditation standards for
trainers. The NYS Coalition for Excellence in Homebuyer Education (
www.cxhe.wordpress.com ) worked to develop these standards and then
encouraged agencies to sign on agreeing to them. It is a little easier for
home buyer counseling, because HUD certifies home buyer counselors through
the Neighborworks program (and perhaps others, sorry, we are not in that
part of the business, so I can’t speak definitively on that subject). My
thought is that there may be a host of existing accreditation entities for
financial ed that states could use in a similar manner (see NFCC and AFCPE
below as suggestions, and there may be others).



WHAT I LEARNED

In any event, I have learned a lot and many of you asked me to share what I
learned. So here goes:



Thanks to the many of you who offered up your excellent curriculum as an
example of the type of ‘standardized� curricula that provides comprehensive
coverage of the content that a state would potentially adopt. There are
lots of great examples out there and they demonstrate exactly the type of
accurate, comprehensive training that I hope everyone who takes a financial
ed class is getting.



Thanks as well to those who mentioned AFCPE (www.afcpe.org )and NFCC (
www.nfcc.org )as accrediting agencies. Both provide certification
processes that require the applicant to demonstrate thorough knowledge of
the material and both are agencies acceptable to the bankruptcy courts.
Some also mentioned the Certified Financial Planner and the Accredited
Financial Advisor designations which folks in the financial services (i.e.
investment advisors) secure after taking exams to demonstrate competency.



As an aside, I would note that we have done some great programs with
volunteers from our local Financial Planning Association and while they have
an incredible depth of knowledge on investment vehicles and financial
planning, they were less familiar with the myriad of social programs that
many of our clients need to tap into to make their fragile budgets work
(i.e. VITA, SNAP, rental assistance, Medicaid, etc) and they have little
experience with debt counseling. Not that they couldn’t be trained, just
that the professional designations they have leave them a little unschooled
in dealing with people who have lots of debt and few assets. All of which is
a long way of saying that I am not sure that I would put Certified Financial
Planner and Accredited Financial Advisor on my “automatically� credentialed
list for financial education.



*LOS ANGELES* (hnicholas@cfrc.net )

I heard from our colleague in LA who noted that his agency is currently
involved with an effort with United Way of Greater Los Angeles and
collaboration of various institutions and organization through the FDIC’s
Alliance for Economic Inclusion to develop a certification program for
financial education providers. The certification, along with the formation
of the Financial Literacy Council of Los Angeles, aims to create a
clearinghouse of sorts for financial education providers as well as promote
standardization and accountability.



*NEW YORK CITY*

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs/Office of Financial
Empowerment has created a nice directory of service providers. It’s not
licensing, but they do have some quality checks and balances. I have
personally worked with OFE and they are terrific, doing a lot of ground
breaking work in Financial Ed including valuable research papers and their
website is worth a look for those not familiar:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/ofe/html/home/home.shtml



*INDIANA* (sreeve@ihcda.in.gov)

The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority created a
certification program primarily for pre-purchase counseling. The Housing
Authority paid for agencies to get the training, but contracted out the
actual training to others. There is now a certification for foreclosure
counseling as well. The training is about 60 hours in length and they have
85 active and an additional 30 or so less active individuals certified.
They noted that an additional benefit of the certification process is that
is has served as a kind of umbrella that helped to bring these agencies
together around various consumer finance issues.



*MICHIGAN* (Yednock@cedam.info )

There are standards for Financial Education in the state Board of Ed (see
Texas below). Standards for foreclosure prevention and debt counseling are
located in the state housing agency.



*MINNESOTA * (FerstanA@unitedwaytwincities.org )

Minnesota is in the process of creating an online training and
certification course through the University of Minnesota, Family Social
Science Department and the University of Minnesota Extension. It is in the
very early stages, but they hope to have it up and running by year three.
It will be for human service providers, Social Work students and possibly
students in the secondary education teaching program. It will be regulated
through the University.



*PENNSYLVANIA * (DKelly@gppuac.org) & (hollychase@state.pa.us )

In the Philadelphia area there is a consortium of institutions doing
community financial education called the Financial Education Network of SE
PA. Among the partners are the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the PA
Department of Banking, several banks, Consumer Credit Counseling Services
and Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition. They hold several
training conferences each year at the Fed.



This group notes that periodically, the subject of certifying community
financial educators comes up. Initially, it was prompted by the idea that
members of the community that they serve could be trained to educate their
peers. A certification process would give them credentials that would be at
the least recognized by the major players in the region. An additional
benefit might be that such a credential might serve as a stepping stone for
people into the financial services industry. More recently, the Financial
Education Department of the PA Department of Banking has begun to explore
this idea as a state action, but it is still in the discussion stage.



At this time, the issue is coming up again because of reported incidents
of fraudulent financial educators who use financial education as a shill for
some type of scam. They have not documented the extent of the problem yet,
but speculate that when they do it may lead to a push for legislative
hearings and possible regulations establishing licensing for financial
educators.



*TEXAS* (jillpharr@friendsofconsumerfreedom.org )

Our Texas colleague responded that the state had mandated financial
education as part of the high school curriculum and had specifically
identified 11 points of information that were to be conveyed.



I know that New York has also mandated Financial Education in high school
however, our survey of local high schools indicates that this training is
included in the mandatory semester of Economics, taken by seniors and
focuses mostly on Macroeconomics rather than personal financial management.
We got lots of responses like, “oh yes, we play the stock market game,� when
what I am more concerned about is do the kids know how to write a check,
balance a checkbook or read a credit card offer ? NEFE (www.nefe.org ),
NFTE (www.nfte.com ) , Jumpstart (www.jumpstart.org )and others have
wonderful curricula for youth, I just don’t often see it well integrated
into economics lesson plans, at least in our communities.



And of course, this whole discussion does not even begin to address the
idea of what constitutes *effective* financial education. Philip Heckman
(pheckman@cuna.coop ) from the Credit Union National Association, Inc.
noted that there is currently an examination of effectiveness by researchers
at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to evaluate a pre-school
curriculum that is in use. A paragraph from Phase One of the research,
which to me seems to be equally true of adults, states:



“Few financial literacy programs are explicit about how the concepts taught
and the lessons developed are expected to improve financial knowledge and
rarely discuss the expected relationship between early financial education
and later financial behavior. There has been virtually no rigorous
evaluation of these programs. This is not to say that some of the programs
we found – and there are lots of them – may not improve children’s ability
to later become better financial decision makers. However, financial
literacy programs tend to concentrate on very concrete lessons without
apparent consideration of what are the underlying concepts and the behavior
and timing of behaviors that seek to be improved with this education.�



CONCLUSION

So there you have it. I hope that you found it instructive, as I did.
Clearly there are some similarities – many states (including my own) have
already reached consensus on this issue as it relates to either home
purchase or foreclosure. Far fewer entities have set standards for
financial education in a broader context.

Perhaps it is because the effect of bad home ownership counseling is pretty
clear and dramatic. However, I would venture that the impacts of bad
financial advice on topics like which debts to pay, what types of investment
to choose in your 401(k) and what really impacts your credit score, costs
Americans millions of dollars each year. Unfortunately, because these
failures are less dramatically obvious, this bad information doesn’t command
the same attention as bad home buying counselors.



But when I think of the working poor families that we see day after day at
my agency, who are struggling so hard to get ahead, I think that we have to
realize the cost of this bad information is not just monetary, although that
is bad enough for financially fragile families, but it also has a tremendous
cost in terms of the loss of hope for a better future that they once had.
I hope this little research project has sparked your interest in
standardization and certification (and kudos to the State of Indiana for
putting their money on the table to make it happen!)



Hope to hear more about this over the next few months. I will keep you
posted if anything further develops in NY. Thanks again for all the
feedback –



Kim Jacobs

Executive Director

Community Capital Resources

7 W. Cross Street

Hawthorne, NY 10532

914 747 8020 Ext. 12

914 747 2049 fax

kjacobs@ccrhv.org





*Celebrating 20 years of Economic Empowerment!*





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[Community Development Banking List]

Original message from: kjacobs@ccrhv.org

The wonders of the internet! Although not on this listserv herself, a
friend forwarded the discussion to Leslie Linfield, Executive Director of
the Institute for Financial Literacy (IFL)who called to give me much better
and more accurate information about certification, accreditation and
standards than I had previously provided. Thanks Leslie for enriching the
knowledge base - this is some great info!



STANDARDS

Leslie noted that Jumpstart (www.jumpstart.org ) has adopted standards for K
- 12 financial education and that her agency (www.financiallit.org )has
adopted standards for the adult population (click on Resources/National
Standards). Both have also adopted a set of best practices for their
respective client groups.



CERTIFICATION and ACCREDITATION ( and yes, I now know that there is a
difference!)

To clarify, NFCC (www.nfcc.com )provides certification for credit
counselors, not financial educators and only for those who work for NFCC
member organizations. AFCPE (www.afcpe.org )provides certification as an
Accredited Financial Counselor, but you should note the distinction between
a counselor (and as someone who has taken their exam, I can verify that
there is a lot of emphasis on the counseling knowledge) and an educator.
IFL is currently launching its own certification (individuals) and
accreditation (organizations) program. The certification can be obtained
through their Center for Financial Education, and is a certification as a
financial educator. The accreditation is done by their Council on
Financial Education Accreditation. They are already in discussion with
several states about how they might work with those states to bring
standards and credentialing into play in those states.



[Leslie - I hope I have correctly documented our conversation - please don't
hesitate to let me know if I have misspoken so that we can get the most
accurate information out there. ]



This may be a great leap forward for those of us who are working to
encourage our state leadership to adopt standards, certification and
accreditation. I encourage you to take a look at the IFL website and to
reach out to Leslie to see how they might be helpful in your efforts. You
can contact Leslie at llinfield@financiallit.org





Kim Jacobs

Executive Director

Community Capital Resources

7 W. Cross Street

Hawthorne, NY 10532

914 747 8020 Ext. 12

914 747 2049 fax

kjacobs@ccrhv.org



Celebrating 20 years of Economic Empowerment!