Better budgeting in Stalybridge will be a priority for some local families now an innovative training programme has begun. The ‘Sound as a Pound’ course started this week, engaging initially with mums from the Ridge Hill area of Stalybridge. All enrollers coincidentally are New Charter tenants, but the course is aimed at all residents. Providers Money Information Network Tameside (MiNT), Ridge Hill Children’s Centre and Skills For Life (Adult Learning team at Tameside MBC) combined to give local people better financial management skills. There's even a crèche for the under 5’s, so the mums can concentrate. The free course runs over six weeks and provides attendees with the knowledge and confidence to organise household budgets, spend and borrow wisely…and even how to save for Christmas! Community Development Worker Sarah Sinclair is based at the newly-opened Ridge Hill Children’s Centre. She contacted local households to understand their training needs. “Demand for better personal financial skills dominated responses” she said. “I knew MiNT was interested in providing people with these skills and it seemed a perfect fit to line them up with the Council’s Adult Learning team.”Mum Kathryn Townsend was one of the first to enrol. She said: “With my little boy happily playing next door, I was surprised how easily I could follow what the tutors were saying. There’s a lot of mums – and dads - round here that could benefit from this course.” David Burdis is Financial Inclusion Manager for MiNT, a post sponsored by New Charter. He said: “This is a great start and our learners today have been enthusiastic and attentive. "Like many people, their reaction is often ‘why didn’t we learn this at school?’ We’ve designed this training to meet what local people want, but in a fun way. I’d like to roll this training out to other areas and improve residents’ skills across Tameside. "Financial skills are all about A, B, C - Advice, Banking and Credit - so it’s appropriate to get this going at a Children’s Centre.”
11 comments:
It is amazing how some people really cannot cope with simple household budgeting. To most it comes naturally, but for the minority to whom it doesn’t it spells misery and financial hardship. I hope this scheme proves successful and helps those in need.
Free childcare!
There is a free crèche while the ‘mothers’ are doing the course. I suppose without it the scheme would be impossible to run due to screaming kids running riot while the mothers were trying to do the course. Ridge Hill estate is a large council estate and I would suspect that a lot of the ‘customers’ using this scheme will be young single mothers. After all; these are the exact type of victims targeted by greedy loan sharks so they probably need the advice more than most.
It'll come in handy when they're choosing their new plasma telly.
Yes I can see where you are coming from with that comment Mr Disco. It is true that sometimes those who least can afford it are the ones suckered into a cycle of debt led consumerism. I am not suggesting that people like this are rewarded for being reckless with their finances, but some really do need help – hence my support for this scheme.
This is unlikely to include FREE Childcare, the tax/ Council tax payer will pay for this.
I would be interested in knowing how much this costs and who is paying?
Assuming these people have been to School in the last Twenty five years I have paid Taxes towards their education. We now find this has not been sufficient, so we pay again?.
This is nothing to do with REAL education. This is yet another opportunity for the Socialists in Tameside/New Charter and the Government to redistribute wealth from the haves to the have-nots, soon there will be no haves(except Labour donors and non doms).
Who would have thunk it a new initiative with tax money in a marginal seat in the run-up to a local election.
Mr UKIP, the numbers involved will not be huge but the issue is real. As previously stated I am not condoning wasters or reckless spenders, but some of the poorest people are genuinely clueless when it comes to managing their personal finances. I do not or never have lived in a social housing environment – and I do not say that out of pomposity! However I have come into contact people that do, and I have realised that maybe as a result of poor education or lack of sound parental guidance, some of the poorest people around are the ones who find themselves lured into a life of never ending debt. Surely a scheme like this is to be praised for helping these people see the errors of their ways?
What concerns me is that once again this is public money being pumped into Ridge Hill. The place is awash with public money through targeted central government funding, politically-motivated local government monies and 'partnership' cash from organisations like Suresh1te.
While I support the regeneration of poorer areas I don't support it when the balance is finally tipped against other areas that are as worthy of attention.
Ultimately, this is a misplaced exercise. These people went to school. Rudimentary arithmetic should not be beyond them. If we are to believe that these are young mothers (17/18/19/20 years old), then we only have the New Labour Governments of Blur and Broon to blame for this situation.
I couldn't agree more Mr. Disco.
As to Blur and Brown, you don't mean Dave Rowntree do you :)
I'm totally in agreement with TC on this one. But I don't think its simply down to lack of basic skills. It's way too easy to spend what you don't have these days. We are in a society where people like to 'appear' to be well off while the reality is they are tens of thousands in debt and that's ON TOP of the mortage for home 'owners' - talking of mortgages, there was a time i couldnt get a mortgage for more than £40 because my salary was £12pa yet now its ok to borrow 5 times your annual salare, how does that figure? - back on track, it's not just nasty loan sharks harrassing people, its big and well known loan companies doing it too with their mailshots and pre-approved loan letters picturing holiday scenes and nice cars - "This could be you". Those with less money get the highest interest rates, crippling them even more and I for one would like to see our government kick these money lenders into touch at the same time as providing means for the hardest hit to get themselves on the right track.
It's amazing how some people feel able to cope with their finances better than others because they feel they are better off. Financial literacy is needed by all members of society not just those living in daily poverty. In fact in my experience as a Debt Adviser it is those with money who know the least about financial products and find themselves in the most debt. Are people aware of the pitfalls of the different mortgage types or the whys and hows of payment protection insurance? Do we all know how to stick to a tight family budget? I think not that is where this training is proving useful.
The reasons why we chose Ridge Hill Children's Centre to pilot this course are: there are well established parent groups who supported the venture from the start, Surestart covers all families with new babies, creche facilities are available and a major incentive for the parents and we wanted to provide a service to residents of Tameside.
This venture has NO political strings attached.
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