The Financial Social Work Certification program is comprised of five highly interactive, motivational, experiential and strength-based lessons – followed by a final exam.
Lesson 1: Making the Journey to Financial Well-Being
Introduces the Financial Social Work Change Model, 5 Step Success Process, and “Money Works” skills for improving financial circumstances while expanding personal awareness.
Lesson 2: Credit and Debt Basics
Provides an in-depth overview of debt and explains good and bad debt, credit reports, FICO scores, debt to income ratio, credit counseling, bankruptcy and more.
Lesson 3: Individual Saving and Spending Plan (ISSP)
Explores spending patterns, triggers and habits, explains why the ISSP is the foundation for financial security and how to use the ISSP to set and to achieve financial priorities and goals.
Lesson 4: Saving and Investing Basics
Basic investment terms and choices are covered and an overview of an investment portfolio, insurance, estate planning, financial planning, risk tolerance and the net worth statement are included.
Lesson 5: Integrating Financial Social Work into Client and Organization Work
An over view of how to integrate FSW into your organization, mission, programs and/or client work.
Certification Exam
The purpose of the exam is to gauge your understanding of what Financial Social Work is and how it is meant to be practiced. Additionally, its goal is to make certain you have acquired the basic financial knowledge to help clients to become more money-wise and to make more knowledge based financial choices.
