As a member of Elder Abuse Action Australia (EAAA), on Thursday 30 March FCVic provided a virtual Lunch‘n’Learn webinar for members and anyone else interested in the topic of financial elder abuse. The session commenced with a welcome from Katy Roy from EAAA and an introduction by the moderator, Suzy Goldsmith (Lead Special Projects, FCVic). Following this Sandra Blake, Senior Financial Counsellor, Small Business Debt Helpline and Mike Kirkness, Senior Financial Counsellor, Latrobe Community Health Service provided de-identified examples of financial elder abuse and gave detail about how Sandra and Mike, as financial counsellors, were able to assist the clients in these situations.
The session illustrated successfully how knowledgeable financial counsellors are, how skilled they are in negotiation, how respectful and non-judgmental they are towards the people that come to them for support, how well connected they are to financial institutions including banks, other advocacy and complaint processes and the special licensing arrangements for financial counsellors. Participants in the webinar raised pertinent questions and these were answered competently and thoroughly.
If you are interested to listen to the virtual session, here is a link to a recording on YouTube [58:56 minutes runtime].
Everyone who registered for the session was also sent a link to the Standing Strong Project resources webpage that includes plenty of resources for older Victorians around financial issues. You can click here to access the Standing Strong Project resources page.
Congratulations to Suzy, Sandra and Mike for representing FCVic and all financial counsellors with such professionalism, obvious knowledge and experience. Following participation in this session those present will certainly have an improved understanding of what to look out for and what financial counsellors may be able to assist with.