Networks and community lead Richard Denyer-Bewick shares three free ways your housing association can support residents with money matters by developing your skills and joining a new community of money guiders across the UK, to take your help further.

There’s a money side to most of life’s challenges, so it’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic has affected the way people manage their day-to-day finances. Managing household bills, feeding a family and making up the rent have together become key issues.

Widespread money worries

By December 2020, nearly nine million people in found themselves needing to borrow more money to make ends meet. The proportion of people borrowing £1,000 or more has risen from 35% to 45% of UK adults since Summer 2020. Some groups have experienced more financial challenges than others due to the pandemic, including: working parents, people aged under 30, self-employed people, and households with incomes of less than £10,000. ¹

There is no doubt that many residents are facing new financial struggles, alongside increased anxiety and stress as a result – and they’re looking to you for guidance.

Money guidance and your role

Helping your residents manage their money and make plans if things go wrong has been a central part of front-line housing roles for years, but the broad range of skills needed to do this effectively sometimes goes unmentioned.

While you might receive regular training on tenancy sustainment, housing law and specific welfare benefits, there’s a lot more breadth to helping people out with money worries – including signposting to trusted financial information, making referrals to other organisations, and guiding people through their own financial landscape to make the right decisions and choices for them. This could be anything that sits outside of the regulated financial advice and debt management world, including guidance on household bills, budgeting, cashflow, borrowing and how to save.

There’s a brand new set of resources to help you take your help further. Our free programme will show you how.

Money Guiders is the free learning and development programme from the Money and Pensions Service. It’s open to organisations and individuals who give non-regulated money guidance as part of their support. It’s here to help those who help others: clarifying what effective money guidance looks like and providing a competency framework and tools to deliver guidance confidently. Here are three ways you can get involved.

1. Develop your money guidance skills

Give effective money guidance as part of your role with our learning and development programme, full of new tools and resources. As a skilled Money Guider, you’ll help your customers further, so they can make the most of their money, while learning and developing in your role. The Money Guider Competency Framework is now available for everyone to use. We have suggested a range of ways it can be put into action and created mapping and development tools that can help you review and inform your practice and learning. Simply use the framework yourself, to assess your skills and identify training needs or learning opportunities.

2. Networking and peer-to-peer learning

Sharing your experience of money guidance work with others in different roles such as social prescribers, care workers and specialist voluntary services, is a great way to learn more about what works and develop your skills. We’re supporting a UK wide network of money guidance practitioners with a wealth of free resources covering the different skills domains of the competency framework.

The networks are kicking off in Spring 2021 with a service created in each of the devolved nations -Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. A whole range of online learning opportunities will be lined up over 2021 including webinars, meetings, workshops, groups and forums – all for free and tailored around the kind of money guidance that you’re delivering.

Fancy joining our community? Drop us a line.

3. Become a pilot partner organisation

We’re looking for organisations that already deliver some form of money guidance to work with us during our test and learn pilot stage, up to September 2021. Partners will benefit from exclusive access to free e-learning mapped to our competency framework, a brand-new award in money guidance, and access to themed content through the Money Guider Networks. Partners can make the most of all these features, or simply choose what suits their organisation – it’s highly flexible, adaptable and accessible.

Take your help further 

Residents need help with money management now more than ever. Money Guiders is here to help those who help others. Here to champion, recognise and grow a new type of specialism, so all sorts of people working on the front line feel capable and confident to give effective money guidance, directly or indirectly.

Ready to take your help further? Visit Money Guiders.

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About the Money and Pensions Service

Money Guiders is a pilot programme running throughout 2021, brought to you by the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS). MaPS is transforming financial wellbeing in the UK: We’re here to ensure every person feels more in control of their finances throughout their lives: from pocket money to pensions. Why? Because when they are, communities are healthier, businesses are more prosperous, the economy benefits and individuals feel better off.

Learn more about how we can help you build financial wellbeing for your residents.

1. Office for National Statistics, Personal and economic wellbeing in Great Britain: January 2021