Building Financial Capability: A Planning Guide for Integrated Services offers online tools and resources to help home visiting and other programs integrate services to build family self-sufficiency and income. The guide, developed under the ASSET initiative for the federal Administration for Children & Families, is aimed at community-based organizations that serve low- to moderate-income families. It provides step-by-step strategies for helping families improve their economic health and well-being.
The guide sets forth three basic approaches an organization can pursue:
- Referring clients to another organization;
- Partnering with another organization to jointly serve clients; and,
- Building capacity to directly deliver services to help families manage their resources more effectively.
Online tools support the organization and its development activities.
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, more than 700,000 children in Florida under age five live in families with incomes below the poverty level. The economic challenges faced by these families threaten the long-term success of their children and contribute to an intergenerational cycle of poverty. Home visitors can play an important role in supporting family self-sufficiency by linking caregivers to education, job training and other community resources that contribute to their financial capability. Improvements in family economic self-sufficiency are measured in the MIECHV program in Benchmark 5.