1. Making the Health/Wealth Connection at Brighter Beginnings
Why & How Brighter Beginnings is investing in Financial Education for all our Families

2. Outline for Presentation
Context for Who we are and Why we added Financial Education
How we are implementing Financial Education
Why be banked
Home Visiting
Fresh approach Nutrition classes
CEO Women Financial Education
Lessons and encouragements

3. Brighter Beginnings – Who we are
We believe every family matters and every child deserves to have a happy, healthy future.
Brighter Beginnings has a rich history of serving Bay Area families who have the greatest needs, but the fewest resources to meet those needs. Over 25 years ago, in order to reverse the rate of infant mortality and teenage pregnancy among African American families in Oakland, a group of organizations came together to form the East Bay Perinatal Council, a nonprofit agency dedicated to connecting low-income mothers with healthcare and other support services. Throughout the years, our programs have expanded to include comprehensive services that support the entire family unit, assisting families to break the cycle of poverty, increase their potentials for healthy births, and nurture children’s successful development.
In the last three years, Brighter Beginnings has engaged in a deliberate effort to transform our organization into a Family Strengthening organization, incorporating the Life Course framework, which together means that we have to take both an individual and a macro/social understanding of how families and children gain assets – both in health and in wealth. My presentation will outline the Main Events which have led us to our current transformation intention.

4. Multiple Risk Factors Poverty, Homelessness Single parent status
Low birth weight
Exposure to environmental toxins
Exposure to traumatic events or violence
Special needs in the family (disability, chronic illness, mental disorders)
Low proficiency in English
Prenatal damage from exposure to alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco
Maternal depression
Abuse & neglect
What Life Course has taught us:
When communities have high concentrations poverty, and few resources to support families – you will also find over-representation of environmental risk factors, such as exposure to toxins – and a corresponding over-representation of family risk factors, such as teen pregnancy and exposure to violence.
Logic would tell us the reverse should be true if we wanted ALL families to succeed in raising happy, healthy children. However, in the communities we target to serve,

5. Brighter Beginnings
Brighter Beginnings strengthens families by helping parents raise happy, healthy children. We do this by helping families in high-stress neighborhoods access basic services, and parenting education & support systems, to build resilience and skills so they can improve the lives of their children, and future generations.
What we do:
So, Brighter Beginnings set out to look for a framework for helping to bridge better support systems for vulnerable families. We found the Strengthening Families through Early Childhood Education logic model to be particularly well-suited as a framework for our programs. These five protective factors have been found through research to be elements in strong families: Parental Resilience, Social Connections, Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development, Concrete Support in Times of Need and Social and Emotional Competence of Children. We are weaving our evaluation of agency and program outcomes along this primary logic model.
Let me give you a short overview of our programs. Brighter Beginnings programs are provided primarily via In-Home Support/Case Management and group-based activities. We have 66 staff, serving around 2300 families each year, at 5 different locations in Oakland, Richmond and Antioch. Our largest programs are:
Teen Family Services: home visiting and parenting education for Teen Parents throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. We serve over a thousand teen families/yr
Early Head Start – provides a mix of both in-home parenting education and socialization activities, we have 7 Parent/Child educators which serve 84 very low income teens and families with children with special needs in East Oakland and the San Antonio/Fruttvale districts
Mental Health Services - we have 7 clinicians who also provide both home-and office based counseling, focused on increasing the resilience of parents and children.
Black Infant Health – changing to a group-based parenting and social support model, we serve over 150 African American pregnant moms in West Contra Costa County
PAPAS: Promoting Advances in Paternal Accountability and Success, a federally funded Responsible Fatherhood grant; we serve 66 fathers each year using a group based education model. Most of our dads have been in substance abuse recovery programs and/or prison re-entry programs, although we are having great success with first time dads at our Antioch First 5 Center
Antioch First 5 Center: parenting education, child development with focus on birth to 3
So – you can see that we are primarily a family “health” serving organization.

6. Why we added Financial Education
September 2007: Brighter Beginnings has presentation about the Life Course gradient and Health Equity
December 2008: Cheri Pies, MCAH Director for Contra Costa included the staff of Black Infant Health, who are Brighter Beginnings employees, in the BEST trainings (where we also met Lauren/CFR)
March 2008: Unnatural Causes
My Learning about the Life Course perspective, started in Alameda County, with my Board Chair at the time, who was Anita Siegel, then Deputy Director of Public Health in Alameda County, under Dr. Tony Iton. , who Anita arranged for a presentation to our Board by their Community Assessment, Planning and Education (CAPE) unit. This was my first exposure to the Life Course gradient and Health Equity.
This initiative was also built from the core framework of the “Life Course” Model and the understanding that health disparities are tied at the hip to wealth disparities.

7. CFR – a tool and possibilities
March 2009: All Staff Training
Lauren’s “pitch” that agencies like Brighter Beginnings, who already have relationships with families who are struggling with poverty-related issues, are particularly well suited to engage in the financial education process.
At the BEST trainings, we met Lauren Leimbach, Community Financial Resources, and my Program Director was intrigued by her Debit Card presentation. Because BEST was a Contra Costa initiative and we have programs in both Alameda and Contra Costa, we invited Lauren to do a presentation to our whole staff, which took place March 13, Only a year ago – this was the easiest “sell” to my staff to do more work, with declining resources. Lauren’s “pitch” that agencies like Brighter Beginnings, who already have relationships with families who are struggling with poverty-related issues, are particularly well suited to engage in the financial education process.

8. Evolution of a Financial Education Model
Coaching Training
Operation Frontline partnership with Pacific Coast Farmer’s Market
Partnership with Patelco Credit Union
CEO Women partnership
In April all our staff had two half-day training on financial coaching with Saundra Davis, the trainer who has worked with EARN in San Francisco. By May, we will have a financial education program that will be integrated into all of our home visiting programs. In July, we will be partnering with the C.E.O. Women to pilot their new DVD and financial education and training series, called the Grand Café Training, to immigrant women in Antioch/East Contra Costa, at the Antioch First 5 Center
The two “curriculum” are the Saving Smart, Spending Smart (Operation Frontline) and the CEO Women’s Grand Café DVD/training, which we are piloting to see if non-ESL instructors can be effective trainors to immigrant women.

9. Financial Education today
Became VITA site in Richmond, Antioch and Oakland
Enroller of CFR Debit Cards
Training on “Why Be Banked” – now delivering to fathers, at Antioch First 5, and to teen parents in Oakland
In the last year, Brighter Beginnings lunged into finding ways to integrate financial education and asset-building into our programs and services. We launched three new VITA programs, which are now operating in Antioch, Richmond and Oakland. We have, with Lauren’s help, had training on Why Be Banked and are a CFR Debit Card enroller. We have integrated the Why Be Banked module into our Fatherhood curriculum, which is being provided at two substance abuse residential recovery programs for men: Discovery House and North Richmond Neighborhood House. We are planning to launch a “Dads, Wealth and Child’s Health” group focusing on fathers with young children at our Antioch First 5 Center in May or June. This month, all our staff will have two half-day training on financial coaching with Saundra Davis, the trainer who has worked with EARN in San Francisco. By May, we will have a financial education program that will be integrated into all of our home visiting programs. In June, we will be partnering with the C.E.O. Women to pilot their new DVD and financial education and training series, called the Grand Café Training, to immigrant women in Antioch/East Contra Costa.

10. Financial Education in Alameda County
Grant from First 5, Every Child Counts
Teen family support program facilitates life skills classes at 3 schools in Alameda county for for pregnant and parenting teens. 3 modules of FE delivered, specifically tailored for teens
Budgeting
How to Save and Creating a Financial Action Plan
Why Be Banked
Teen family support program facilitates life skills classes at 3 schools in Alameda county for for pregnant and parenting teens. 3 modules of FE delivered, specifically tailored for teens, Budgeting, How to Save and Creating a Financial Action Plan, Why Be Banked. Have gotten positive feedback from teens.

11. Financial Education, cont
Workshop series offered to community
First 4 sessions well received. Have had over 10 participants at each session.
Creative incentives – participants receive $5 each class, BB matches if they attend at least 3 of the classes
Financial Education Workshop Series—6 sessions open to BB client and their families
Partnered with PATELCO trainer Veronica Dangerfield
Had over 10 participants at each session; 70% attended every group.
Creative incentives – participants receive $5 each class, BB matches if they attend at least 3 of the classes,
Working on plans for a Spanish speaking financial ed workshop. However, content would be specific to some of the concerns/issues of monolingual families, ie working in the informal economy, lack of ss# etc.
Presenting the Why Be Banked module at Lotus Bloom and will offer to other 5 organizations in the next year.

12. Financial Education in the home
Budgeting (income vs out-going expenses)
If income, getting Banked (1-to-1 module)
Building safety-net savings
Creating financial goals
Referrals – ACCAN, and FESP
CFR card enrollment
Integrating Financial Assessment and Intervention into our Home Visiting programs; goals is to have financial baseline in all our initial client assessments. We have created a Financial Assessment baseline tool, and our intent is to do 6-month follow-up assessments. The assessment tool asks about education and employment status and goals, banking status, and begins to establish the basics for future discussions about budgeting and financial planning. We are in the process of developing curriculum for our Family Advocates to use in the home for:
Budgeting (income vs out-going expenses)
If income, getting Banked (1-to-1 module)
Building safety-net savings
Creating financial goals
Referrals – ACCAN
CFR card enrollment
Implementation issues:
Learning curve for staff – for many of us, we have our own challenges with financial stability/budgeting/saving. Developing staff’s confidence and capacity to work with clients around these issues.
Integrating something new into our program – getting staff buy-in for the importance/relevance to client well-being given the work load/multiple and crisis needs that we are addressing with clients
Making our interventions specific and culturally appropriate to the population, be it teens, mental health clients, monolingual clients,
Tracking of referrals, outcomes with achieving financial goals
Closing
At Brighter Beginnings, we now know that a positive change in the attitudes and behaviors of parents around finance management will impact their children and can lead to positive outcomes in health, education, and asset building. We are seeing the connections, and are committed to helping our families see the connections too. This is a work in progress, but our goal is to integrate financial ed throughout our programs.

13. Evaluation
Evaluation: How do we know that our work is having an impact?
% of clients that set financial goals
% of clients who report feeling competent to achieve at least 1 financial goal
Follow through with referrals – outcomes from referrals
We just completed our first series of financial education classes, series of 3 one-hour classes, for teen parents that attend Cal Safe (special education support program for pp teens) and a 6-week, 1 ½ hour financial education workshop which had teen parents, parents from our Early Head Start program and also CalWorks mental health program. Total participants were 96, the workshop had 13 participants, and 78% attended all 6 sessions. Of those that completed the assessment evaluations, 100% felt they had learned how to make and keep financial goals. With the teen classes, 100% of those that attended at least 2 sessions felt competent to achieve at least 1 financial goal. This is a great start.

14. For More Information Barbara Bunn McCullough, Ph.D.
Brighter Beginnings
(510)