Financial Capability and Asset Building for All is one of the 12 Grand Challenges for Social Work and a growing practice in the social work profession. The Center for Social Development is committed to working with its partners to increase the financial capability of individuals, families, and communities across the globe! 
- Join the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative’s FCAB network. Please email FCAB Director Gena McClendon.
Financial capability education
- Margaret Sherraden is lead author, with Julie Birkenmaier (Saint Louis University) and Michael Collins (University of Wisconsin), of a forthcoming textbook on FCAB to be published by Oxford University Press.
- At Washington University, Lorien Carter and other practice instructors have integrated financial capability content into their curriculum and conducted pre/post testing to assess student outcomes. Trish Kohl has facilitated the offering of a FCAB Skills Lab course taught by Gena McClendon and Lissa Johnson: Helping Low-Income Clients Navigate Household Finances.
- Jason Purnell and the For the Sake of All team are working in the St. Louis community to promote family financial education and Child Development Accounts.
Financial capability research
- Michal Grinstein-Weiss and her research team, Meredith Covington, Geraldine Hannon, and Ellen Frank-Miller, will be testing the use of payroll loans and financial coaching as components of workplace financial wellness programs offered by various employers, and will host a conference with employers in the fall of 2017.
- Margaret Sherraden, with Lissa Johnson, Peter Dore, and Gena McClendon are surveying all social work faculty in the U.S. about household financial and economic content in social work curricula. If you have received an invitation, please participate!
- Molly Tovar, Director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center, is leading a savings intervention with American Indian youth in Oklahoma.
- Michal Grinstein-Weiss and her research team, Stephen Roll, Sam Bufe, and Emily Gallagher, are working with TurboTax to explore ways of encouraging people to save their tax refunds. They are also advising the Canadian government on the development of similar interventions, as well as providing guidance to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the implementation of the myRA flexible retirement account.
Financial capability policy and practice
- Michal Grinstein-Weiss continues to advise on implementation of Israel’s newly implemented “Savings for Every Child” national child development account law for all resident newborns.
- Michael Sherraden and Margaret Clancy continue to advise U.S. states and cities on establishing Child Development Accounts through 529 college savings plans. Margaret Sherraden, is working with social work colleagues at the National University of Singapore on FCAB curriculum for Singapore. Li Zou and Jin Huang are working with Deng Suo and others at Peking University in Beijing to test child savings accounts in China.
Did you know…?
- Financial capability is reestablishing its place in social work education.
- A test shows Child Development Accounts have positive impacts on outlook and behaviors.
- In TurboTax, motivational prompts to save tax refunds can increase saving among low- and moderate-income households.
- Savings held in 529 college savings accounts can have less impact on need-based aid than savings held in basic savings accounts.
- The odds of low-income Black households holding student debt are double those of low-income White households.
- In a financial emergency, low-income households prefer to use mainstream options like banks but often have no choice other than to rely on high-cost resources like payday loans.
Resource links
- Definition of Financial Capability, Encyclopedia of Social Work
- Build Financial Capability for All, a grand challenge for social work
- CSD and financial capability
- For the Sake of All
- Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Clearinghouse for Economic Well-Being in Social Work Education
- University of Maryland Financial Social Work
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – Your Money Your Goals
- National Endowment for Financial Education