FCRC is offering this 2-day workshop as part of its Elder Abuse project, funded by Department of Health and Human Services. This project aims to both train financial counsellors to work effectively with older people at risk of or experiencing elder abuse, and to train and develop aged care, health and allied professionals working in the DHHS Integrated Model of Care program about financial counselling and what it can bring to client/patient care around elder abuse.

The Foundation Level Unit covers the fundamental skills and knowledge required to deliver effective financial counselling services to victims of family violence and/or economic abuse.

The Advanced Level Unit builds on the previous session delivered and provides expert training for all specialist Family Violence financial counsellors in Victoria and financial counsellors who hold a leadership or supervisory role and work regularly with clients who have experienced family violence.

Is there a way of supporting clients to get out of unfair or unlawful consumer contracts? In amongst a client’s usual debts, you will sometimes come across debts that have been incurred as a result of your client contracting with a business that uses high pressure selling tactics or unfair contract terms. They may have agreed to make ongoing payments or to have entered a linked credit contract to finance the sale. Looking at solar panels sold door to door, gym contracts and private college training courses, learn what to look out for and how to use consumer protections to assist your client.

This session is about supervision with the focus on the supervisee. How can you prepare for your supervision session with a professional supervisor to get the most of your session together? What is your role and what should you expect from a professional supervision session? Supervision is designed to promote wellbeing, facilitate reflective practice, explore ethical issues, develop skills and foster best practice. What can you contribute and what tools can you use to ensure your session will meet those targets?

Many clients, particularly those affected by gambling harm, benefit from working simultaneously with a therapeutic counsellor and a financial counsellor. However, there are not, as yet, well developed models of interdisciplinary approaches to clients experiencing gambling harm, and there is a lot to learn about how to develop effective cooperation between ‘FCs and TCs’. This session for both TCs and FCs will establish a clear understanding of the different roles of each, then look at ways the two can or should collaborate in producing the best possible outcomes for clients.

This workshop will be the first of our Graduate Year series for newly qualified and early career financial counsellors. In this session, we will address some of the challenges around debt enforcement and consumer credit that you might be facing in your work with clients.

The lack of a broad anti-avoidance provision in the National Consumer Credit Protection Act means that some credit providers take advantage of loopholes in the law to offer high cost, unregulated credit. These creditors impact on people who are struggling the most financially which means financial counsellors may see them in their practice regularly. Learn how to recognise these credit contracts and hear from other financial counsellors and Consumer Action about the strategies that can be used to advocate for your client when the law fails.

Making referrals is an important part of the work we do. This session will provide opportunity to reflect on your referral practices and if these referrals are always providing the most appropriate options for your clients.
Will the referral adequately meet the needs of the client and how do we avoid wearing out the client on a referral roundabout? How do we best address the barriers faced by the client to get further help?

This workshop will be the first of our Masterclass series for experienced financial counsellors. In this round table session, we will workshop strategies for dealing with tricky scenarios relating to responsible and irresponsible lending.

Professional supervision is an essential component of building professional development into financial counselling through providing structured professional support and mentoring to financial counsellors. This session is to refresh your understanding of professional supervision concepts, share & discuss your challenges and stay up to date with new concepts regarding professional supervision. It will enable supervisors to learn from each other and develop a deeper understanding of what constitutes good practice in professional supervision.

This session is open to anyone interested in taking on a leadership position in the future, as well as those currently holding a management position. The focus of this training will be on conflict resolution as a key leadership skill. It will provide lots of practical skill development opportunities.
Topics covered will include problematic personalities and how to respond to them, moving on to running effective meetings including managing difficult behaviours appropriately and resolving conflicts more broadly.

For many Australians, access to Centrelink payments is essential for their basic financial survival and wellbeing. This course is designed to provide attendees with the practical skills and tools necessary to assist clients who disagree with a Centrelink decision, including navigating the Centrelink appeals process (in particular for Disability Support Pension applicants) and assisting those who have had debts raised against them for alleged overpayments. This session is designed to incorporate and complement existing knowledge of attendees and will be interactive and dynamic, with a focus on the application of technical knowledge and skills in a practical setting. It also aims at bringing social security experts and financial counsellors together in order to provide better outcomes for clients.

The Telephone Counselling Skills training program has been developed for financial counsellors who assist clients over the phone as part of their work. It will provide participants with a framework to work effectively in providing assistance to clients over the phone and will involve a facilitated discussion between participants on effective strategies for managing challenging calls.

Separation in many instances is a major contributor to poverty. What should I tell my client about separation? This session will provide an overview of the family law system and look into division of assets, joint debts, child support and spouse maintenance.

This Leaderclass is a continuation of the Masterclass held at the end of 2018 and designed specifically for the leading practitioners in the field. The aim of the Leaderclass is to provide specialist, leading financial counsellors with opportunity to continue building best practice skills and knowledge in responding to the needs of clients impacted by family violence. The content and format of the Leaderclass will be determined in consultation with participants. It will assist senior practitioners to respond to complex cases – the type of cases you might not encounter every day, but that challenge your current skill set.

For many Australians, access to Centrelink payments is essential for their basic financial survival and wellbeing. This course is designed to provide attendees with the practical skills and tools necessary to assist clients who disagree with a Centrelink decision, including navigating the Centrelink appeals process (in particular for Disability Support Pension applicants) and assisting those who have had debts raised against them for alleged overpayments. This session is designed to incorporate and complement existing knowledge of attendees and will be interactive and dynamic, with a focus on the application of technical knowledge and skills in a practical setting. It also aims at bringing social security experts and financial counsellors together in order to provide better outcomes for clients.

Find out about the latest changes and upcoming possibilities for changes to the law. In this session, we will be focusing on the Part IX reforms which came into effect mid-2019 amongst others.