Facilitators

bi monthly? starting end of July? 27 July 1.30 -3pm?

I think that would be great.  Lock the date in very soon so it doesn't get filled with other stuff please if others are in agreement.

Have sent a Zoom link to you all  

Good morning team. Great start to this process yesterday so thanks for getting involved. Just to let you know that between Linley and myself we will be checking this discussion forum on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings to we can keep up to date with any conversations.  Happy blogging.

I woke up in the night with things going around my head, so the first thing I had to do as soon as I had a moment was to see what happened on Client Voices with the two options for WEP that we were discussing yesterday.  I did a trial by: 1. Entering WEP as a weekly income of $30, starting on 1 May and ending 30 Sept.  This results in the CF being correct, ($30/w for the period specified) but the Budget shows a weekly income available of $30 - it does not convert it to annual and then weekly 2. I entered the WEP as a weekly income of $12.69 ($30 x 22 weeks, divided by 52 to give a weekly average), which creates a correct budget ($12.69 available weekly) but an incorrect CF, as $12.69 either occurs every week for 52 weeks, or, if given the start and end dates for WEP, results in only $12.69 available weekly for that period. Either way, this is a real problem. My opinion - FMIC is for teaching the BASICS, and, as has been highlighted by our discussion yesterday, this is getting a bit complicated.

Hi Christina Thank you very much for checking out how WEP would show on CV as that is something I didn't do. - I see the problem on these budgets. I was asked to write an email of my findings in the FMIC by a facilitator and I reluctantly did with references but it took me 4+hours. So I am going to copy & paste portions of that email and open a thread for each of the FMIC case studies with some of my findings & questions on them with the WEP etc. I'm not saying I am right & such & such is wrong. Let's have a discussion.

WEP on the budget. My thought is that we teach that the BWS is a snapshot of the here and now. So if WEP was current then you'd put it in full. We also expect to update the BWS several times during the time the client is with us. The cashflow woudl represent the actual payments but the budget woudl change depending on the time of year. This would also be true for when the client gets a job and comes off the benefit. The budget is updated again. the BWS is a working document and will always change. For me working it across a 12 month period doesn't work and isn't fair on the client.

I agree with Christine.  I've been thinking of this a lot and talking with my colleague.  The same issue exists with short-term debt, e.g. rent/power arrears where a short-term separate arrangement is entered into, BNPL debt, a credit contract that has less than 12 months to run, etc, etc.  If we teach that WEP should be annualised, then why not all short-term debt repayments?  That gets far too confusing.  I was always told, and have taught, that the BWS represents the client's current financial position - it is a snapshot in time.  The Cash Flow gives the annual forecast.