George Tsounias explains how My Personal Finance Skills is now educating the nation’s adults about money matters
The My Personal Finance Skills website now has a ‘Your Money’ section, which extends the financial education offered by the initiative to people of all ages.
To address the needs of adults looking to become more financially aware and resilient, the site includes information on how to build a budget, secure a financial safety net, manage debt and to begin saving and investing. The site also offers a savings calculator, which identifies how much money is needed to be set aside to achieve a goal, such as saving for a deposit or paying for a big life event.
Building resilience
The recent pandemic has highlighted the immediate need for people of all ages to be more alert to scams and be empowered to improve their own financial resilience. Action Fraud reported that by July 2020, victims had lost more than £11m to coronavirus-related scams. The Your Money site therefore also includes information about how to avoid all types of scams, with signposts to organisations offering guidance, such as the Money and Pensions Service.
Keith Richards, CEO of the PFS, says: “Following the ongoing success of our school-focused programme,
My Personal Finance Skills’, which has about 1,000 volunteer Education Champions across the UK, it seemed logical to extend the promotion of financial education, support tools and the principle of financial wellbeing to everyone.”
All participants in the My Personal Finance Skills initiative will be encouraged to share the site widely, to encourage people of all ages to increase their financial awareness and understanding of money matters.
Schools update
As well as updating the website, we are delighted to have added six new workshops for school-age children (see box) to our existing suite of four, bringing the total number of sessions on offer to ten. All sessions have been quality marked for their content and focus on financial education, so schools can choose sessions that best suit their needs.
In the coming months, we are hopeful our Education Champions will be able to return to the classroom so sessions can take place as they once did, face to face. I am encouraging all our members to share our initiative widely so that we can engage with even more educators.
To get in touch, email skills@thepfs.org
You can access the Your Money section of the My Personal Finance Skills website by scanning this QR code with your phone.
George Tsounias is relationship manager of education at the PFS
Image credit | Shutterstock
A quick look at the highlights of our school programme since the start of the academic year:
- 350 virtual sessions delivered.
- 1,000 students reached.
- Three new workshops and three new personal finance talks introduced.
New workshops:
- Opening the first bank account (11-14 years).
- Understanding credit, debit and debt (14-18 years).
- Loans and mortgages (16-18 years).
New personal finance talks:
- Personal finance basics (11-18 years).
- Moving on from school (14-18 years).
- Identity theft and scams (11-18 years).
