Financial Life Skills Training with Inmates

2018 NACo Achievement Award Winner

St. Lucie County, Fla., FL

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About the Program

Category: Financial Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

“Your Game Plan for Building Wealth” is a Financial Life Skills Extension program designed to raise awareness of the financial pitfalls inmates may face after their release from the St. Lucie County Jail, with a focus on proactive money management. Working with the St. Lucie County Jail’s Chaplain, the UF/IFAS Extension St Lucie County created this innovative program after learning from a Florida Department of Corrections study that recidivism rates are significantly lower for inmates who complete academic, vocational and substance abuse programs. Program objectives include improving inmate job readiness, entrepreneurship, budgeting, banking, saving, credit management, consumer awareness, communication skills and loss mitigation. Special attention is paid to educate participants about the community resources available to them upon release. Program partners include the jail, public defender’s office and the UF/IFAS Extension St. Lucie Community Resource Development (CRD) Agent serving as the program facilitator. Each objective supports an overall strategy for building wealth and assets which research indicates decreases recidivism. Since its inception in July 2017, participating inmates consistently report increased knowledge of how to set specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and time sensitive (SMART) goals (67%), how to improve a credit score (56%), dealing with debt collectors (71%), and reading a stock report (60%).

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