Delivering financial capability to learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities
In partnership with the National Skills Academy for Financial Services
Focus group member
A Southern England College
Aim
To address the gaps in personal finance knowledge of a group of young mums with various learning difficulties and disabilities, many of whom find balancing their budgets a challenging daily task.
Background
The learner group chosen by a Southern England College was a community learning project. The learners were a group of young mums living in a neighbourhood where many people have money worries and struggle to manage finances. The area has a high number of residents without work and skill levels are below average.
Action
The group completed a pre-learning questionnaire and had interactive sessions with tutors. The results showed that although the group felt confident about going into banks and asking questions, there were significant gaps in their personal finance ‘know how’.
Outcome
Financial capability sessions helped fill gaps in learners’ personal finance knowledge, with tutors providing the sessions in a format specifically designed to suit the needs of the group. Informal, anonymous discussion groups were held to complement the financial capability sessions, allowing group members to open up and share experiences and information.
The How To Guide…Disabilities produced as the outcome of this focus group looks at particular delivery methods to support these learners. For example, their needs often include one-to-one support and more familiarity with numeracy skills in order that they can create and manage budgets.
Learning from the group has been shared within the College with the aim of embedding financial capability more widely in a wide range of courses.
