Although the economic crisis in Europe was on the cusp of abatement and family life returning to normal in most Member States, the Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant fall-out globally, will leave a considerable negative legacy on the economic standing of Europe and detrimental impacts the lives of many vulnerable and disadvantaged families. Before the pandemic outbreak, there were many families across Europe for whom the debt legacy of last 10 years remained a profound and ongoing issue. Debt consolidation and restructuring, negative equity mortgages, rent arrears, payday loans, personal insolvency, vulture funds are terms that have become all too familiar for many adults throughout Europe and have been accompanied by repossessions of goods and property and evictions. While these are the visible signs of the stress that many families still find themselves under there has also been a rise in family break-ups, stress related illnesses, even suicides. For many adults, the lack of appropriate financial literacy is at the centre of these ongoing problems and never more so are these skills and competences needed to navigate the next wave of financial uncertainty. In truth, there is no easy way out of the current situation for many families and hard choices will have to be made to try and mitigate the impact of financial difficulties moving forward. If there are any lessons to be learned from the recent events in Europe it must surely be acknowledged that financial literacy is a key literacy for all Europeans if we are to achieve the inclusive and equitable society that is one of the core EU objectives. Families can't issue bonds or get support from the European Central Bank. When families are caught up in dire financial circumstances there are a limited number of options available to them to help overcome their problems. While financial institutions around Europe are committed to working with families in debt to plan a way out of the current distressful situations and while there are now a whole host of organisations that have been established to offer advice and support to individuals in financial difficulty the adult family members who have in most cases initiated the current debt burden are still refusing to engage with the financial institutions and support agencies. These problems won't go away and one of the main factors hindering possible resolutions of family debt is the lack of key financial literacy skills that currently pertain in most low-skilled communities where debt burdens remain high. For many individuals the support agencies that have been established come with a stigma, stress and embarrassment. additionally, many of the effected adults don't have the self-confidence to contact their financial institution and begin the process of restructuring or reconciling their indebtedness. For many building financial literacy in a non-threatening environment can be the first step on the road to recovery. Adult and community education settings are the perfect vehicle to begin the literacy raising process through a family learning approach. Effective family learning requires a bottom-up approach in that family are considered in the design of any proposed learning materials. The overall aim of the project is to produce new pedagogic practices that impact adult education provision by supporting family learning through new digital learning tools. Through the MONEY MATTERS project will develop the following outputs: - O1: State of the Art Research Report – identifying the latent training and resource needs of Adult Educators and Disadvantaged Families – creating learning outcome matrices for training curricula and value propositions for the resource toolkit and literacy library - O2: Train the Trainer programme with manual for adult educators on the family learning approach to financial literacy - O3: Induction training programme for parents and guardians introducing them to the theme of financial literacy and the relevant resources created by the partnership - O4: Digital Resource Toolkit and Mobile App containing age-appropriate materials for all members of the family to be used by adult educators - O5: Financial Literacy Library (online interface) for families on the topic of family literacy with appropriate real-life case studies (created using Kumo.io or similar which is a mind-mapping software). All resources, including the training manual and resource toolbox, will be available in all partner languages (EN, PT, GR, IT) on a dedicated project website and they will be made available to all interested parties without restriction in keeping with the open access requirements of the ERASMUS+ programme.
The objectives were to: a) develop, pilot and deliver a quality CPD programme for adult educators, practitioners and relevant stakeholders, through a training methodology which can be customized and contextualised to local needs b) enable adult educators to embed tools for financial literacy within their standard teaching and engagements with families to ensure family learning opportunities are responsive to current needs, challenges and opportunities of the target group c) increase the capacity of educators to develop and include strengths-based, participatory, learner-led approaches in their teaching d) develop an accessible online platform to promote and disseminate effective and innovative approaches to financial literacy teaching & family learning for wider use across the EU e) share the importance of financial literacy skills to support marginalised citizens in taking an active part in society.
Initially we were seeking to address the debt legacy and financial squeeze on families which resulted from the 2008 economic crisis and the Covid pandemic which also hit economies and family finances hard. By the latter stages of our project, the need for financial literacy support had become even more stark due to the global recession caused by the war in Ukraine which has led to unprecedented increases in the cost of living across Europe. We had found that there was a scarcity of high-quality material and resources to teach financial literacy to parents and children, and a lack of training for practitioners, so these were the needs we have addressed. Our aim was to empower marginalised and disadvantaged families with the necessary financial literacy skills and competences for the economic and social participation in society, producing new pedagogic practices that will impact adult education provision by supporting family learning through new digital learning tools.