Do you know any accredited financial courses in your area

kezbabybabe

Hi Martin,

The charity I work for (British Computer Society (BCS)) has created a Personal Finance qualification:
http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.8417

Hope this helps your list.

Kerry

webbdoyle

Yes I did this course too. Excellent as it puts money management in context and over the "life-course"

SimJ

Christians Against Povity (CAPUK.org) is a Christian Debt Counselling Charity ran on a not for profit basis. It is running money mangagment courses in conjunction with local churches up and down the country. It's a free three one evening a week course run by volunteers trained at the CAP headquarters in Bradford. I've just started running the second course at the Reddsih Life Centre here in STOCKPORT, and will be doing more in the near future.

Sarah2258

I work for the BCS (British Computer Society) we are a charity whose role is to provide education and support for the IT industry.

We have a suite of qualifications called Personal Finance (www.bcs.org/personalfinance) that aims to help people manage their money, avoid debt and plan for the future. It also covers identity fraud, card and online fraud and other practical money strategies and where to seek advice. It has two levels and starts at £20 for 3 units (Level 1 qualification). The top price is £60 for 8 units (Level 2 diploma).

To ensure maximum flexibility we adopted a pick n mix approach so you can take as many or as few units as you wish (there are 13 in total – 3 for the Level 1; 10 for the Level 2). This way you choose the bits you want to do at either level. Obviously the higher level is more detailed. There is a small assessment at the end of each unit to ensure that you have learnt something.

The good thing is that they are relatively cheap and in some cases FREE as there is funding available for both courses via the LSC if you are eligible to draw funding. This is because it is on the NQF (National Qualifications Framework, a government way to map/assess qualifications).

These qualifications have been developed with the help of the FSA, NIACE and financial consultants and advisors and are proving to be popular.

At present we have some training organisations on board but we're keen to get more. We welcome anybody to sign up for the courses/exams or just to find out some more information, visit www.bcs.org/personalfinance or request further information from [EMAIL="qualsmarketing@hq.bcs.org.uk"]qualsmarketing@hq.bcs.org.uk[/EMAIL]

As a bit of background on BCS, we have 65,000 members and we are kind of like a trade association. We also offer lots of IT qualifications from basic computer skills to technical training courses. For more details, visit www.bcs.org.

lucy271981

Newcastle-under-Lyme College in North Staffordshire has a FREE part-time course called Money Matters which covers financial literacy and numeracy. There's a new course starting in September - email [EMAIL="info@nulc.ac.uk"]info@nulc.ac.uk[/EMAIL], call 01782 254212 or visit www.nulc.ac.uk for more details.

CameronD

I manage the CCE Money Clinic - a church-based community project in south Edinburgh which offers personal budget coaching, both support for individuals and also the training of coaches. We work in partnership with Christians against Poverty (see SimJ above) and Stewardship (see Kfn1502 above).

While its scope is deliberately limited - we do not do formal debt advice - the aim is to help people to be in control and hence avoid getting into serious debt, and to build the lifeskills they need to get out of debt and stay out. I'm a CAB general adviser on other days, and can see the different needs which the clients there have for (a) formal debt advice and (b) help in organising their own finances on a very practical, daily basis.

For individuals, we use the three session CAP Money course to try to put them in control of their money, first helping them to set out a budget, but then giving them tools to help them to live by that budget - that is where I think CAP Money is the best aproach in the market. Each client is different, and we need to find a modern equivalent for our grandparent's jamjars for different expenses and especially promoting the use of cash. We also do one-to-one support for clients, and signpost on to free debt advice when required. Our service is free for the whole community - we can be contacted at [EMAIL="money@cce.uk.net"]money@cce.uk.net[/EMAIL]

As a church-based project, we also aim to facilitate the training of budget coaches by Stewardship, so that each local church has a trained budget coach on its pastoral team.

richardtalbot

Stewardship Money run Personal Budget Coach training courses for our Personal Budget Coach volunteers and any church who want to help people manage their money effectively or provide help for those in debt in their church and local community. We have trained 230 so far this year. Details can be found at: http://www.stewardship.org.uk/money/role_pbc.htm