Discusses the concept of financial capability. Presents information about young people nationally (financial literacy, knowledge and awareness of financial services), in order to put the young people described in the evaluation in context.

Outlines the characteristics of the participants and looks at their understanding of the concept of financial capability. Looks at their attitudes to money, incomes, spending, banking, credit unions, saving, borrowing, debt, budgeting etc, before the introduction of the financial skills programme, and at the end of the pilot period.

Considers the effectiveness of the pilot scheme and draws lessons for others working on financial capability skills.

Fairbridge is a national charity that works with young people aged 13 to 25 who are vulnerable or disadvantaged. Its Bristol centre, Fairbridge West, is one of six organisations that received funding from the Financial Services Authority to pilot a financial capability initiative with disadvantaged young people. The pilot is intended to identify best practice and create a toolkit for use by other Fairbridge centres nationally and other organisations working with similar client groups.

The evaluation used qualitative research techniques. It was conducted in two phases:

Concludes that Fairbridge West has a special relationship with young people that enables it to broach subjects that may be unpalatable from elsewhere and has made a small difference to financial capability over a fairly short space of time.

Recommendations are to:

Personal Finance Research Centre, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol
Phone: +44 117 928 8634
ggy-pfrc@bristol.ac.uk

01/07/2005

Adele Atkinson; Personal Finance Research Centre, University of Bristol

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Quality of life

Financial inclusion