68
What’s so special about that number?
For us, it’s a milestone. It represents 68 individual journeys, 68 individual experiences, and 68 amazing stories on our Financial Wellness Champions Spotlight page. That’s right—68 of us are now Certified Financial Counselors having earned the Certified Credit Union Financial Counselor designation! What an accomplishment!
Why does this certification matter?
It matters because it’s how we can collectively align our work, our resources and our commitment to fulfilling our mission of providing compassionate guidance to our members to help them enhance their well-being. And we hope you personally benefit from having this knowledge for your own financial journey.
Let’s learn from each other
If you haven’t read through the FinWell Champions Spotlight page recently, I strongly encourage you to do so. Not only will you learn more about your coworkers, you’ll likely find some great ideas for how you can apply this knowledge at work and in your personal life. For instance,
- Desiree Campos-Lucatero – When studying the material and preparing for the exam, she shared the concepts from the study materials with her kids to help them begin building some basic money management knowledge.
- Jennifer Guevarra – Her experience helped her gain additional insight to the real financial journeys members are on so she can help shape lending solutions that make a difference in our members’ lives.
What’s coming next
While financial counselor certification is a goal, it’s not our end-game. The real value from certification comes from sharing that knowledge with others. Here’s what we have planned in the coming weeks and months to help all of us continue to build our financial health knowledge collectively, and some ways we’re going to help our member-facing teams share their knowledge with our members.
- Did You Know? – Monday, 3/30
We’ll be re-launching our Did You Know? weekly emails to help us all build our financial knowledge with some practical tips and information. A big thanks to Sylvia, Noel, Brenda and Tania for launching the program last year! We’ve paused it over the past month or so in order to transition the program to our Training and Development Department. Building on what the previous Did You Know team created, Liz Zamora and Leslie Salazar will be incorporating some additional tips each week, and sprinkle in some fun contests and competitions throughout the year. - Capstone Sessions – April
We’ll begin offering Capstone Sessions to celebrate our certified financial counselors and help them understand how their knowledge and certification can be used going forward. - Financial Wellness in Every Interaction Training – May
We’ll begin offering training to our member-facing teams to help them infuse financial wellness knowledge into their daily member interactions. We’ll be using our existing CONNECT and LEAP models as the basis for this training though we’ve modernized them by incorporating financial wellness into the models.
A final thought
We recognize that we are all learning together—we’re learning new ways to do things and new ways to look at how we can deliver financial wellness in all that we do. But it’s important not to become overwhelmed and instead be patient with yourself and with others as we work together to bring our mission to life. And if you’re ever in need of a “pick-me-up” or a way to “center yourself” during a hectic day, you might just want to check out the FinWell Champions page and read a few of the posts. I think you’ll find some inspiration, motivation and reminders for why and how we show up each day for our members, and each other. Thank you for the great work you do every day, and being part of our journey.
