OIC Hosts a MoneyWi$e Roundtable in Nation’s Capital

The Opportunities Industrialization Center of Washington, DC (OIC/DC) partnered with Consumer Action in the nation’s capital to host a full day of training for community and faith-based organizations on the renowned MoneyWi$e curriculum. The May 10th “train-the-trainer” roundtable, led by Consumer Action’s (CA) Community Outreach and Training Manager Linda Williams, focused on topics such as identity theft, rebuilding credit, saving to build wealth, and money management. OIC/DC provides literacy, occupational skills and job readiness training, placement services, and strength-based, case-management services monthly to hundreds of DC residents with multiple barriers to employment. The MoneyWi$e curriculum, developed by CA in partnership with Capital One, provides in-depth brochures, leaders’ guides, lesson plans, activities and PowerPoint slides for trainers seeking to teach core topics in money management.

Williams opened the training session sharing CA’s mission to “help all consumers assert their rights in the marketplace.” She noted that partnering with agencies like OIC to conduct train-the-trainer roundtables is one of the ways in which CA is achieving its mission. Williams next facilitated a discussion on “Why Adults Learn,” an interactive session geared at helping participants understand ways to teach adult clients effectively. CA develops resources geared to adult learners, and Williams emphasized specific strategies that can be used to engage participants in a manner that best meets each individual’s needs and learning preferences. Williams then trained participants on ways to use the MoneyWi$e modules to empower their clients to recognize and avoid identity theft, rebuild credit, manage their money and build wealth. Williams ended the training with a group activity that focuses on a case study of a fictional client, Sally Walker. The case study is designed to emphasize some of the key learning concepts of other relevant CA educational modules, such as rebuilding credit, money management and ID theft. Williams also used the Sally Walker activity to stress the importance of ordering individual specialty consumer reports, pointing out how the information collected by specialty consumer reporting agencies can have an impact on an individual consumer’s budget.

The response to the training was overwhelmingly positive. All participants agreed that the timing of the training was perfect.

“I learned a wealth of information from the MoneyWi$e training, and I was highly impressed with the materials and activities used at the training—particularly the Sally Walker activity, because it was so thorough and thought-provoking,” said Yehwroe D. Sinyan, the economic education coordinator for the NAACP. Sinyan also said that even after she left the workshop, she continued to think about the implications of the choices that Sally (the fictional character in the activity) made and how those decisions translate to her own life. Another training participant, JaQues Anderson, a GED instructor at Anacostia Community Outreach Center, said, “This was my first MoneyWi$e training and boy were my eyes opened! I thought I was doing something just shredding my mail. But in just 2 hours I learned a myriad of other steps I need to take to protect myself and my identity.” Anderson went on to say, “As a result of the training, I am now teaching other consumers about the opportunities criminals have and how to protect against fraud. I cannot wait to receive my MoneyWi$e training materials so I can train my students on ID theft and how to better manage their money.”