Redefining financial vulnerability in Canada

How we define financial vulnerability ultimately determines what supports are created and for whom. Is the current definition aimed at helping everyone who needs it?

This webinar explores the conception and redefining of financial vulnerability in Canada based on the research and findings from the book Financial Vulnerability in Canada: The Embedded Experience of Households. These research findings will then be highlighted through discussion of first-hand frontline experiences, with a focus on importance of providing financial help services using a trauma-informed approach.

The webinar speakers are:

  • Jerry Buckland (Canadian Mennonite University)
  • Brenda Spotton Visano (York University)
  • Margaret Yu (Momentum)

This webinar will benefit frontline practitioners supporting those in financially vulnerable situations, as well as those who influence or inform policy decisions. 

Click 'Get it' below to access the video link, and scroll down to access slides, handouts, and video timestamps for this webinar.



Read the presentation slides for this webinar.

Download the handout for this webinar: Flyer for ‘Redefining Financial Vulnerability in Canada: The Embedded Experience of Households’.

Time-stamps for the video recording:
3:31 – Agenda and Introductions
7:15 – Redefining financial vulnerability in Canada (speaker: Jerry Buckland and Brenda Spotton Visano)
24:33 – Audience poll question 1
27:07– Audience poll questions 2 & 3
33:57 – Audience poll question 4
38:00 – Financial Empowerment (Speaker: Margaret Yu)
52:15– Q&A


Testing the use of the Mint app in an interactive personal finance module

To advance understanding of effective financial education methods, the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) conducted an experiment using Mint, a financial improvement tool offered by Intuit, whose financial products include TurboTax and QuickBooks. This study measures Mint’s effectiveness at improving students’ financial knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Students at the George Washington University participated in a half-day budgeting workshop and were exposed to either Mint, which is a real-time, automated platform, or Excel, which is an offline, static tool. 

The authors found that participation in both workshops was associated with improved preparedness to have conversations about money matters with parents, a greater sense of financial autonomy, and an increased awareness of the importance of budgeting, but that participants in the Mint workshop were more likely to have a positive experience using the budgeting tool, to feel confident that they could achieve a financial goal, and to be engaged in budgeting one month after the workshop. Results show that even short financial education interventions can meaningfully influence students’ financial attitudes and behavior and that an interactive tool like Mint may have advantages over a more static tool like Excel. 



Strengthening the Economic Foundation for Youth and Young Adults During COVID & Beyond

The unemployment rate for young workers ages 16–24 jumped from 8.4% to 24.4% from spring 2019 to spring 2020 in the United States, representing four million youth. While unemployment for their counterparts ages 25 and older rose from 2.8% to 11.3% the Spring 2020 unemployment rates were even higher for young Black, Hispanic, and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) workers (29.6%, 27.5%, and 29.7%, respectively. 

The following speakers discuss how to build financial security for youth (16-24) in this webinar: Monique Miles, Aspen Institute, Forum for Community Solutions, Margaret Libby, My Path, Amadeos Oyagata, Youth Leader, and Don Baylor, The Annie E. Casey Foundation (moderator).



National Strategies for Financial Education: OECD/INFE Policy Handbook

Financial education has become an important complement to market conduct and prudential regulation and improving individual financial behaviours a long-term policy priority in many countries. The OECD and its International Network on Financial Education (INFE) conducts research and develops tools to support policy makers and public authorities to design and implement national strategies for financial education.

This handbook provides an overview of the status of national strategies worldwide,  an analysis of relevant practices and case studies and identifies key lessons learnt. The policy handbook also includes a checklist for action, intended as a self-assessment tool for governments and public authorities.



On Shaky Ground: Stabilizing the Financial Security of Single Women

The economic fragility of single women 45-65 years of age is growing, states AFN’s report, On Shaky Ground: Stabilizing the Financial Security of Single Women, released in collaboration with Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap Initiative (CWWG).

This report is the first in a series that builds off AFN’s 2015 publication, Women & Wealth, that explores how the gender wealth gap impacts women.

On Shaky Ground illustrates how the women’s wealth gap is exacerbated by the racial wealth gap and goes far beyond wage inequality. It is compounded by imbalances in the tax code, the structure of employer-based benefits, the Social Security system, and market-based products and services. This new report speaks to how the wealth gap is impacting current generations and threatens the financial security of future generations.