Financial Wellness & Peer Support: Building Hope for a Better Financial Future

Why a webinar on financial wellness for peer support providers? ​Financial wellness matters to recovery. Poverty, financial hardship and dependency on public benefits are top barriers to recovery and wellness. They are root causes of depression, anxiety, and suicide. In fact, many of the problems people in recovery experience have more to do with their social conditions than their diagnoses. Peer support providers can help foster financial hope. Economic exclusion hurts individuals and communities by crushing hope, a vital ingredient of recovery. Studies have shown that peer support can be effective at building hope. In many ways, hope is more essential to financial wellness than knowledge and skills. Peers can help foster financial hope: the sense of financial agency ("I can achieve my financial wellness goals and life dreams") and financial pathways ("There are concrete ways I can achieve my financial wellness goals"). Learning Objectives​ - Identify key elements of hope and why hope and economic inclusion matter to recovery - Discuss why peers don't have to be financial counselors or experts nor have "achieved" financial wellness to build financial hope among others. - Recognize concrete strategies peer support providers can use to help build financial hope in five domains: day-to-day financial stability, long-term financial security, autonomy from public benefits, ability to control their financial decisions, economic citizenship and participation. - Follow a six-step economic empowerment process to engage people in culturally meaningful conversations about life dreams and financial goals, build financial hope, develop financial wellness action plans and coach people through a process that helps them to move toward financial goals