SAM Program Coaches Session Reports and Information
Welcome Smart About Money (SAM) Budget Coaches!
Thank you for volunteering to be a trained budget coach for Smart About Money (SAM), a free program offered by United Way of Greater New Haven in partnership with Annie E. Casey Foundation assisting low and moderate income households set and achieve financial goals through a series of one on one sessions with trained volunteer budget coaches for a period of four months.
Below is an outline of the activities to be covered at each monthly face-to-face budget coaching session and each telephone check-in. At the end of each monthly face-to-face activity outline is a link to the online report budget coaches are required to complete. Budget coaching session reports are due the last day of each month. Please feel free to contact Jan McCray Price at (203)691-4216 for assistance with completing reports or for assistance with helping your assigned household meet their financial goals.
Budget coaches are also encouraged to take full advantage of the wealth of expertise, experience and knowledge available through the use of the SAM Google site http://groups.google.com/a/uwgnh.org/group/sam-budget-coaches. Budget coaches can also communicate with, share and forward comments, group questions or successes to other SAM budget coaches and program staff by emailing the SAM group at sam-budget-coaches@uwgnh.org. If you have not already done so, you will need to accept the invitation to this group to take advantage of this tool.
For ease of use, pdf files of the budget coaching curriculum materials covered at the budget coaches training are listed below. No portion of the budget coaching curriculum materials may be reproduced or used outside of SAM 3.0 Budget Coaching Program without written permission of WBDC.
Overview of Smart About Money (SAM) Budget Coaching Sessions
SAM Budget Coaching Session #1 (Face-to-Face) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
- SAM coach and participant meet to begin building rapport
- SAM coach reviews participant’s background and household summary with participant
- Discuss personal financial goals
- Discuss any barriers or challenges to obtaining goals (what has and has not work in past)
- Review participants initial budget (if available) or begin developing budget
- Review and Wrap-up
- Ask participant what they can do between now and the next time you meet that will make a difference with achieving their short term goals
- Ask what they want to accomplish between now and the next time you meet. Participants should identify their own assignment during this discussion.
- Set-up the next face-to-face session date/time/location
- Complete first face-to-face Session Report
- Arrange to conduct your first follow-up call/email in approximately 2 weeks
SAM Budget Coaching Session #2 (Phone Check-in) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
In approximately two weeks from your first face-to-face session you should conduct your first telephone/email follow-up with participant to:
- Discussion how tracking expenses and utilizing the budget is going
- Learn about any progress made towards achieving short term goals
- Identify and brainstorm against challenges to meeting goals
- Celebrate early wins
SAM Budget Coaching Session #3 (Face-to-Face) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
- Participant and coach review budget in detail
- Compare budget to tracked expenses
- Update Action Plan to achieve goals
- Brainstorm strategies for moving forward on achieving short term goals
- Begin discuss on credit scores (refer to resources provided in curriculum)
- Ask participant to pull credit score for review at the next face–to-face session
- Review and Wrap-up
- Ask participant what they can do between now and the next time you meet that will bring them closer to achieving their short term goals.
- Ask what they want to accomplish between now and the next time you meet. Participants should identify their own assignment during this discussion.
- Set up the next session date/time/location
- Complete second face-to-face Session Report
- Arrange to conduct your second follow-up call/email in approximately 2 weeks
SAM Budget Coaching Session #4 (Phone Check-in) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
In approximately two weeks from your second face-to-face session you should conduct your second phone/email follow-up with participant to:
- Discuss how tracking expenses and utilizing the budget is going
- Learn about any progress made towards achieving short term goals
- Identify and brainstorm against challenges to meeting goals
- Celebrate early wins toward achieving goals
- Remind participant to pull credit score for next session
SAM Budget Coaching Session #5 (Face-toFace) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
- Participant and coach review budget in detail and tracked expenses
- Brainstorm strategies for bringing income and expenses into alignment (if needed)
- Brainstorm strategies for moving forward on achieving short term goals
- Confirm goal achievement(s) over last 30 days
- Review and discuss credit score
- Review and Wrap-up
- Ask what they want to accomplish between now and the next time you meet. Participants should identify their own assignment during this discussion.
- Set up the final face-to-face session date/time/location
- Complete third face-to-face Session Report
- Arrange to conduct your third follow-up call/email in approximately 2 weeks
SAM Budget Coaching Session #6 (Phone Check-in) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
In approximately two weeks from your third face-to-face session you should conduct a telephone/email follow-up with participant to:
- Learn about progress made toward the participant identified homework
- Learn about participants efforts to understand more about their credit score
- Celebrate progress
SAM Budget Coaching Session # 7 (Face-to-Face) Conducted by Volunteer Budget Coach
- Coach and participant review and make final adjustments to budget
- Coach encourages participant to continue to use of budget after program end date
- Discuss strategies for continuous progress toward achievement of financial goals
- Celebrate progress and success
- Inform/Remind participant a representative from the partner agency will contact them within 1 week to conduct an exit interview to learn more about their SAM experience
- Complete Final Coach's Session Report
SAM Program Exit Interview Session # 8 (Face-to-Face) Conducted by Partner Agency Staff
- Partner agency staff and participant review final budget
- Partner agency staff celebrate progress and successes
- Partner agency staff encourages participant to continue to work towards achievement of financial goals
- Partner agency staff administers "SAM Participant End of Program Survey"
- Partner agency staff presents participant with certificate of program completion
- Partner agency staff completes and submits to United Way program data report
