The Power of Negative Thinking:
Building Financial Empathy by Embracing the Suck
Monday 9:15am
As financial educators, we know the link between emotions and money, and often have to play the role of unofficial therapist; hey, there’s a reason behavioral therapy is a thing! As such, we may use positive tactics to encourage and motivate those we serve. But what if this approach is doing more harm than good?
What if we could deepen our conversations by embracing the suck, while also helping others better understand how to achieve and maintain happiness as part of holistic financial wellness?
Inceptia continues our behavioral science dive with a new look at how to be happy – but also, why being happy is not always the right response in building financial health. In this session, we’ll talk through the benefits of feeling ALL the feels and how to find peace and balance through:
- Applying behavioral science theory to maximize happiness
- Learning to identify toxic positivity – and just say no!
Breaking Down Financial Equity Barriers with Financial Edutainment
Monday 10:30am
Spondulics is the Financial Capability Streaming platform making an active impact in the lives of low- to moderate- income households across the world. According to the FDIC, in 2021 underbanked rates were significantly higher in minority and lower income households. This is where Spondulics and our mission come into play.
Spondulics mission is to make financial edutainment accessible to all. We do this by breaking down barriers to financial capability, banking access, and more through specialized edutainment content created by experts across various financial industries. Run by financial capability practitioners, with content made by financial capability practitioners, there’s no better free platform to engage and enable individuals to succeed in their finances. Spondulics is at the forefront of inclusive financial edutainment by bringing awareness to overlooked issues such as the overlap of mental health and finances, and representing communities that are often overlooked in mainstream media, such as the LGBTQ+ community, and those with dangerous food allergies.
In an interactive and facilitated discussion, we will explain what has worked for us on our journey through developing the platform into what it is today, inviting you to participate and collaborate through an interactive game element on the Spondulics platform.
Who Are You Missing with Your Financial Education Programs?
Monday 1:00pm
Organizations are leaning into Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA). If your organization offers financial education, are you ignoring one-quarter of the American population, individuals with disabilities?
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 26% of all adults in America have a disability. These disabilities can range from physical to cognitive and intellectual to sensory. Households that include a person(s) with a disability struggle financially. The percentage of households with incomes less than $15,000 skyrockets to over 32% of households with a disability versus 5.85% of households without a disability. And there is a similar gap in levels of savings and net worth. Adults of working age with a disability have the lowest percentage of savings and significantly lower net worth than working-age adults without a disability.
Financial education and the topics we typically include overlook the needs of individuals with disabilities. Pennsylvania Assistive Technology Foundation (PATF) financial education publications will introduce you to a more inclusive approach to teaching financial education. While our suite of financial education programs addresses the needs of students with disabilities, like how to save without jeopardizing benefits and supported decision-making, it is our experience that all students benefit from the materials in our curriculum. We also provide our financial education materials free of charge.
This workshop will include an overview of PATF’s first-of-its-kind, and newly updated financial publications: Cents and Sensibility: A Money Management Guide and the Educator Companion Manual. The Companion Manual includes national standards, lesson objectives, key terms, and supplemental activities. Because we all learn better by doing, the workshop will include activities from the publications and a quick view of our online resource StudyMoney.
Identifying and Navigating Unique Financial Aid Situations
Monday 1:00pm
Courageous conversations are needed when working with many of our students. One sensitive area regardless of where our students fall is income. The FAFSA causes a lot of fear and anxiety for students especially if they have come from difficult situations such as divorce, homelessness and other painful situations. It is difficult for students to open up to us especially if they don’t know us. Asking them the hard questions can help us to assist them better in navigating the FAFSA and other financial aid forms.
As easy as it is to give a blanket presentation to Juniors and Seniors, many students have a variety of situations that make the FAFSA less than typical. In this session, we will highlight a few unique situations and how to advise the students on how to proceed.
Five Steps in Financial Planning Using Technology and Mobile Applications
Monday 2:15pm
People are connected to the internet six hours and 54 minutes a day, to the cell phone for 145 minutes, and every minute some 435,000 apps are downloaded. This means that the trend in people’s behavior is directed and focused on the cell phone as a tool for information, organization and daily decision-making. Therefore we must use the best available applications that manage to build financial well-being according to the five pillars of personal financial well-being: Budget, Credit, Debt, Savings, Retirement and Insurance.
This session will explore top simple and practice applications: Money on hand, Prism, Debt Payoff Planner, Credit Karma and MyFICO, OINGZ, and Retirement Planne.
Aquaponics and Financial Education: It’s a Fishy Business
Monday 2:15pm
This session will show you how a financial education curriculum (Cents & Sensibility) is embedded within an aquaponic job training, employment, and leadership program for students with intellectual and other developmental disabilities.
5 Secrets to Unforgettable Financial Workshops
Monday 3:30pm
Don’t let your hard work fall flat. Come learn the communication and content creation skills that turn a good financial workshop into a memorable student experience capable of inspiring action for years to come.
Have You Ever? Retrain Your Brain for Smart Money Decisions
Tuesday 9:15am
Have you ever spent money when you were stressed out? Made a purchase because your friends did? Gone to the store when you were hungry and bought a cart-full of junk food? Wondered where that last $20 went? Taken on debt that wasn’t necessary? Wished you could control your spending? Made an impulse purchase you later regretted?
The money decisions we make are informed by many inputs, including our background, experiences, and environment. This interactive session will unpack these inputs along with some psychological biases that impact almost every money decision we make.
We can retrain our brains when it comes to money decisions. Come and learn how!
Behavioral Economics: What it is and How it Affects Our Money
Tuesday 10:30am
This session will discuss behavioral economics principals and why behavioral economics is important to our students and to us as teachers. We will look at teaching these principals as well as using them to help us be sensitive to our students varying situations.
But What Can We Do About the Gender Wage Gap?
Tuesday 1:00pm
Did you know that in America, women make $.82 for every dollar that a man makes? For BIPOC women, those amounts are even less, with Latina women experiencing the largest wage disparity at $.55 to every dollar.
The pandemic has further compounded the issue, with women disproportionately impacted by job loss that resulted in $800 billion in lost income. Clearly, our work as financial educators is incomplete and unequal if we are not addressing the gender wage gap.
So what can we do about it?
This session will explore the root causes of the gender wage gap, the downstream effects on society and our economy, and action steps we can ALL take to combat gender disparity (this discussion is not just for women!).
Foundations of Financial Coaching
Tuesday 1:00pm
Financial coaching is an approach that can provide valuable strategies for financial practitioners to help clients build financial capability and reach their financial goals. During this session, we will review the A|4 Financial Coaching Model, learn how practitioners can use coaching to benefit their clients and learn what the Foundations of Financial Coaching Program includes.
Fintech Revolutionizing Financial Services
Tuesday 2:15pm
Fintech has the potential to reshape the delivery of critical financial services for low-income communities, addressing needs such as building and maintaining a budget, increasing savings and building credit. Join us for an engaging discussion and learn valuable insights and tips from a 2-year project working with nonprofits that have successfully integrated Fintech to better serve Latino and immigrant communities.
Walk away with a resource that can help you assess your organization’s readiness to integrate fintech into your programming.
Financial Wellness Programs for the Workplace
Tuesday 2:15pm
This session will discuss the benefits of a Financial Wellness program in the workplace. We will discuss the benefits to both employers and employees, how the program should be structured, and the effect of the program in helping businesses engage, support, and retain employees.
Let’s Talk Money: How to Get More out of Financial Coaching
Wednesday 9:15am
This session will address a variety of techniques to get more out of financial coaching. You will have opportunities to practice asking meaningful questions and differentiating knowledge, skills, and reflection when working with others. The session will provide insight on how educators and counselors can create a safe space to implement financial learning experiences where students/clients can effectively learn and form healthy financial habits.
Storytelling in Financial Education
Wednesday 10:30am
Personal finance is exactly that: personal. No individual’s relationship with money is exactly like any other’s, yet so much of personal finance education is about giving one “right” answer to our questions about money. While the basics are important, we also need to show students the diversity of financial experiences and circumstances, and show them we understand theirs.
In this session, you will learn how we incorporate storytelling into our lessons at Healthy Rich and additional ways they can add stories to the classroom to ensure students gain a broad and personalized understanding of money.