“Financial Capability Practice” — a course based on the Center for Social Development’s new Financial Capability & Asset Building (FCAB) curriculum — begins in January at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work. 
Financial Capability Practice builds on CSD’s FCAB initiative. Since 2012, FCAB has partnered with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions to pilot and evaluate the FCAB curriculum.
A consortium of 11 schools has incorporated the curriculum’s content into existing social work and human services programs.
The FCAB course is the first that will be taught at the Brown School. It will introduce MSW students to approaches that enable families to address immediate financial problems and build long-term security, when to refer clients to other professionals for more in-depth financial counseling or legal advice, and how to collaborate with others to generate policy and program solutions to enhance financial capability in families and communities. Sheila Fazio, MSW, a licensed clinical social worker, will teach the course.
“I’m extremely excited that FCAB will be taught at the Brown School,” says Mike Rochelle Jr., CSD’s project director for the FCAB initiative. “The curriculum development team worked hard on ensuring that, as an educational resource, the curriculum will add a dynamic to student’s practice. We believe it will.”
Reviews from partners in the field have been “extraordinarily positive,” Rochelle says. “Teaching the content at Brown is a natural progression of the initiative.”
The FCAB initiative’s goal is to address the wide gap in professional training of social work practitioners who serve low- and moderate-income households. In this way, CSD hopes to indirectly increase financial capability of low- and middle-income households.