Debt Advice Foundation

DebtAware—Money Skills for Life Programme

DebtAware is part of the Debt Advice Foundation, who are a national charity giving free advice and help to people in financial difficulties. It is only a very small charity with ten staff working on the Debt Advice Foundation area and three staff on the education programme.

DebtAware was established eight years ago, the idea being to expand the range of what Debt Advice Foundation offered, in terms of assisting people to be better informed as to managing their money. We see as it as the prevention and the cure of problem debt.

The DebtAware Programme has evolved organically over the last eight years, from an idea first developed with students aged 14 to 16 years of age. We have always involved students in the development of the programme. They have written all the MONEY DIARIES that we use in lessons and they have proven to be very popular.

The programme, at present is aimed at children aged 9-11 years of age, although we are currently developing units of work for children aged 7-11 years of age.  Therefore covering the whole of Key Stage Two, we hope to deliver to this younger age group from September of this year.

At present there are EIGHT modules or topics and the first FOUR are delivered to children in year five. They are what we regard as the foundation topics of the programme, beginning with wants/needs. In year six, there are another FOUR modules available and schools are invited to choose TWO of the modules, choosing the two that are best suited to the needs of their pupils, school and community. All the modules are well resourced. Each one comes with a power-point, workbook, extra tasks and tasks to try at home. The tasks to try at home booklet are handed out at the end of a session as a homework task and we encourage children to undertake the tasks with a parent or carer. We are keen to involve parents in the discussions about managing money.

Money Mentors delivering a session to the rest of the class – Year 5, Primrose Hill Primary School, Chorley, Lancashire

The DebtAware Team deliver the key lesson for each module. These normally take two hours to complete, in school terms a morning or afternoon session. We then leave the school to complete the module and to do this up to FOUR members of the class are appointed as MONEY MENTORS. These children will lead the class on the extra tasks and different children will be given the opportunity to act as a money mentor over the course of the two years of the programme. We are keen at all stages of the programme to involve the pupils. Each of the Tasks to Take Home Booklets includes a section allowing parents/carers and children to note down any money topic they would like us to include in the programme. The fact that the DebtAware Team deliver the key session in each module is quite labour intensive. However, the vast majority of schools have said they much prefer the direct delivery approach to the programme.

At present we have 140 schools in the programme and that converts to 10000 children annually receiving the programme. The schools are mainly in the North West of England as DebtAware is based near Blackburn.

Our main aim is the give children the knowledge, understanding and skills to adopt a sensible and sound attitude toward managing money. Developing the correct attitude is extremely important.

We do evaluate the programme, with end of session questionnaires for pupils and teachers. The responses are very positive and we are looking to operate a longitudinal study later in the year.