Advisors are teaching financial literacy to help former inmates learn how to manage their finances after living life behind bars.
The Financial Planning Association of New Jersey (FPANJ) has established a partnership with the U.S. Probations Office – U.S. Courts District of New Jersey and created a financial education course for former federal inmates on probation.
Officer Maria Goodwater has also been overseeing the program, which had been done in the past, but she explained that the need continued even after the previous classes had ended. "Our clients continue to have questions on money, and we developed a list of those things they asked the most," she said. "We were confident that FPANJ would be able to support our goals through this class, and the success and interest in this class has been noticed by our supervisors."
The class varied widely in race, age, and gender. Participants ranged from 28 to 50 years old and consisted of 16 men and two women, said Luis R. Gonzalez, supervisory U.S. probation officer, District of New Jersey.
The group also had varying backgrounds. Their offenses included bank and mortgage fraud, bank robbery, firearms possession and drug crimes. Some members of the class had previously been on probation while others had served up to 22 years in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, according to Gonzalez.
One class member had been incarcerated at age 20 and served 27 years for a drug offense. He was a model student who never missed a class; he started his own business and is doing very well today, said FPANJ President John J. Crosby, CFP.
The goal of the course is to help individuals who have served time to re-integrate back into society. Participants enrolled in the course are enthusiastic, engaged and show strong interest in the course material, said Edward Bao, CFP, AIF, an advisor with Smallwood Wealth Management in Red Bank, N.J.
Bao, Crosby and former President Thomas Duffy, CFP, have been working with the most recent group. "Really, we couldn't have anticipated the level of interest we got from this class," Bao said in a press release. The first class in the latest session began with an overview of financial topics. The class was supposed to last between 45 and 60 minutes. After 90 minutes, participants were still fully engaged and eager to ask questions, said Bao.
The course covers topics that include debt, budgeting, insurance and investments. Participants are assigned homework from a workbook supplied by the Dallas Federal Reserve, and they also learn how they can use free resources to educate themselves. The course is expected to include four to five classes, and so far, only two people have opted out, according to the release.
Supervisory Officer Luis Gonzalez said in the release that the experience was "eye-opening” for the class, supervisors and instructors.