It all adds up for QSA
Quaker Social Action expands financial capability initiatives
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has turned its attention towards the criminal justice sector with its latest financial education project, ‘Adds Up’.
The charity’s ‘Made of Money’ initiative has focused, for the last decade, on financial capability. QSA director Judith Moran said that she and the team are ‘always trying to find new ways for the methodology and resources we use to be adapted and made even more useful to different groups within the community’. Hence, ‘Adds Up’.
Judith told the Friend: ‘We researched the support available to people within prison, leaving prison, and help for their families at home in terms of financial capability, and felt that we might be able to offer something helpful.’
The project will be financed by a grant from the J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust. This means, Judith explained, that QSA can adapt existing training specifically to suit the needs of people in these situations. It will also be able to offer revised training and resources for free to professionals who support them.
She said: ‘We know that charities working in this field are very squeezed for funds and for the time to innovate themselves, so we are delighted to be able to offer them something which we believe will support their work.’
As part of the research for ‘Adds Up’, Judith visited Peterborough Prison. This was facilitated by Friends who visit the female prisoners there, and she was shown around by the former Quaker prison chaplain. ‘It was invaluable in shaping our thinking,’ she said.
‘Adds Up’ is to launch in the summer and will have a national reach.
