Working Families Group Provides Training About Financial Tools

Staff Report -- TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Institute for Working Families is offering free training for case managers, financial counselors and other educators to help low-income families determine their financial needs make a plan to solve them.

The institute received a $27,500 grant from the Duke Energy Foundation to offer 20 local training sessions on its Indiana Self-Sufficiency Standard Calculator and Case Management Portal.

The standard measures how much income is needed for a family of a certain composition in a given county to adequately meet their basic needs – without public or private assistance. An online calculator makes it possible to determine whether the incomes of different family types are enough to meet their basic needs depending on the counties where they live.

Information on how to request training is available here.

“With the support of Duke Energy grants over the past five years, we have been able to create online tools and now training to help low-income families budget and assess their financial needs,” said Jessica Fraser, program manager of the Institute for Working Families.

“With this grant, we are able to travel across Indiana spreading the word about self-sufficiency and get this tool into the hands of dedicated practitioners who work with low-income families to achieve and maintain economic self-sufficiency,” she said.