Your Money, Your Goals - A financial empowerment toolkit for social services programs.

How should I bring up money topics?

Use the assessment tool

If you have a lot of contact with a client, one of the easiest ways to bring up money is to use the
Client Goal and Financial Situation Assessment from Module 2. By going over this series of
questions with your client, you will have a clear picture of where he or she stands and what
information might be most useful. Remember, you can:

 Ask your client to complete the assessment individually either in your office or at home

 Cover the questions in the assessment orally or in conversation format

 Ask your clients to complete or answer only a few of the questions

Make the most of short-term contacts

While it’s great to be able to build trust and discuss financial issues with your clients over the
long term, sometimes you just don’t have that kind of time. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t
work on empowering your clients financially during short-contact meetings, such as when a
client applies for public benefits or comes in for job skills training. For example, if you had a
brief meeting with a new client, George, who came in to apply for an energy assistance program,
you could say: