Collaboration

The Treasure Valley Economic Action Program (TVEAP) is an incredible collaboration that allows the WCA to provide the most cohesive services to more people in our community dealing with the impact of domestic abuse.

Providing ‑financial literacy education to neighboring agencies has enabled the WCA to move forward in its goal to cultivate a safer, healthier community. The WCA is the lead agency for the TVEAP which began in 2010 as a collaborative eff­ort of six valley agencies. The curriculum is called Realizing Your Economic Action Plan, or REAP, which is taught by two Financial Literacy Educators employed through the WCA.

“The curriculum contains information that teaches women about safety, empowerment, economic abuse and other financial concepts such as budgeting, credit, banking and investing. The curriculum encourages individual coaching sessions for the women who want to work on personal financial matters outside the group setting,” said Yazmin McNeal, Financial Literacy Educator

The educators have now been able to share the material with not only WCA clients, but also partner agencies such as Safe Place Ministries, Easter Seals Goodwill, Friends of Children and Families, and the Idaho Department of Correction. This spring, the educators also provided a financial literacy education and economic abuse training session at the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.

McNeal said the third class, “Understanding Credit” tends to be the most crucial for the clients she serves. “It has helped the clients understand how long debts stay on their credit report, what is a credit score and what is a credit report. This class has helped the women understand how to write a letter to the three credit bureaus, so errors are removed from their credit report,” she said. “The women find the entire curriculum very informative, but class [three] seems the most eye-opening.”