Financial Counseling for Gamblers

Situation:
Legislation enacted in 2004 allocated a large sum of money to provide financial counseling for those addicted to gambling. In Northeast Iowa, the local Substance Abuse Service Centers were awarded the grant funds, however, none of the gambling counselors have training or expertise to provide financial counseling or financial education to their clients. The training funds need to be spent by July 1, 2005 and agencies that receive money from credit card companies cannot double dip by also receiving funds for gamblers. Since there are few non-profit agencies that fit the requirements, the local SASC director turned to ISU Extension.

Response:

• In December of 2004 the SASC Director servicing 8 counties in Northeast Iowa contracted with the Family Resource Management specialist to provide 10 hours of financial counseling training for 11 gambling counselors.
• The contract included a counselor resource notebook ($50/notebook), 10 hours of contact teaching time @ $35/hr, and mileage for two days of training. SASC also purchased 11 copies of PowerPay from Idaho Extension and the book Surviving Debt for all the trained counselors.
• After the two days of training it was obvious to both the SASC director and the ISUE staff that many of the gambling counselors needed more help and support since they were personally dealing with many of the financial issues that their clients were dealing with.
• Contacts were made to Mark Oleson at the ISU Financial Counseling Clinic and the state SASC organization to explore the possibility of a statewide training effort that would utilize the expertise of the financial counseling clinic, the FRMs around the state, and ISUE in general.

Results:
A proposal was developed by ISUE staff (Mark Oleson and several FRMs from around the state), presented to, and accepted by the state SASC representative. This proposal calls for ISUE to provide financial counseling training in four, possibly five, additional locations around the state before July 1, 2005 .

• 2 – 5 hour sessions would be provided per site using the Dubuque training materials
• 15 counselors will be trained at each site (N-60 – 75)
• ISUE will provide a notebook for each trainee (The Dubuque Notebook will be repilcated.)
• Mark Oleson and Doug Borkowski from the ISU Financial Counseling Clinic will teach one session and the local FRMs will teach the second day of training.
• This contract will generate more than $13,000 for ISUE.
• SASC in the NE area has contracted with Extension to have five Certified Financial Counselors (trained in 2002 with Rural Mental Health grant dollars) work with referred clients. They will pay $50/hr for the first hour of counseling and $40/hr for all subsequent sessions. Delaware County Extension is the fiscal agent for this contract.
• This project has the potential of raising the visibility of ISUE and the ISU Financial Counseling Clinic as a valuable resource for families throughout the state. It also provides income for the volunteers that completed the certification training with ISU and extends ISUE's ability to work with families in need.

Contact:
Ellen Spurlock
Family Resource Management Specialist
PO Box 336
Manchester, IA 52057
Phone 563-927-4201; Fax 563-927-3744
Email ejspurlo@iastate.edu

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