COUNSELING AND EDUCATION - PROGRAMS AND TOOLS

• Accel Members Financial Counseling
  GreenPath offers free counseling , free education and free debt management services to more than 2 million credit union members. These people are members of credit unions that purchase these services for their members through GreenPath's Accel program. For more information, see www.accelservices.org.
  
  
• "Banking Is" Student Education Program
  GreenPath's Banking Is program is designed to teach high school students the basics of the banking system and financial responsibility. Specific topics include balancing a checkbook, budgeting money and applying for a loan. The program includes student study guides and check sets, teacher kits, a software program, and a video. More than 200 schools throughout the country have used the Banking Is program. If you are interested in offering Banking Is in your community, please contact Michael Williams at (248)459-0920.
  
  
• Bankruptcy Counseling
  GreenPath is approved by the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees to provide pre-bankruptcy counseling throughout the United States. Counseling sessions explore the consumer's financial situation and examines their potential options. Each consumer receives a full budget, action plan, briefing booklet summarizing the concepts discussed and questions to ask an attorney. For more information, see www.greenpathbk.com
  
  
• Bankruptcy Education
  GreenPath is approved by the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees to provide pre-discharge bankruptcy education throughout the United States. Consumers receive a copy of Second Chance, a course in personal financial management developed by Money Matters, Inc. in South Dakota. They take a test to measure what they learned, and then receive about 30 minutes of additional counseling to answer questions, review the test results, and revisit specific subject areas based on the test results. For more information, see www.greenpathbk.com
  
  
• BudgetSmart Budgeting Software
  GreenPath developed BudgetSmart to be an easy-to-use budgeting software program that helps consumers manage their budget. They can plan how they want to spend and save money, track and analyze how their monthly income is actually spent, view typical spending ranges for specific expense categories, learn how to adjust areas where they are overspending, and create "what if" budgets to determine how a purchase or change in income would impact their budget.
  
  
• Community Advantage
  Community Advantage is a program that provides free counseling and education for community bank customers. The program promotes proactive financial counseling and education, but does not provide free debt management services. For more information, see www.communityadvantage1.org
  
  
• Community Partner Program
  Through this program, community organizations are able to take advantage of Community Advantage services free of charge courtesy of a local bank that is offering Community Advantage to its customers. For more information, contact Al Bilinski at abilinski@greenpath.com or (248)939-7033.
  
  
• Credit Report Counseling
  Consumers may obtain a recent copy of their credit report or purchase one from GreenPath. A counselor can help them understand their credit report, how to improve their score, and how to dispute and remove incorrect information.
  
  
• Credit When Credit Is Due
  Credit When Credit Is Due is a comprehensive financial education program developed by the American Center for Credit Education. Buying a car or home? Applying for a credit card? Borrowing money? Saving for college or retirement? Dealing with collectors? This workbook will help you make better financial decisions. It is written in a conversational, easy-to-understand style and features many real life examples. It contains 12 tests, which students complete and mail to GreenPath for grading. GreenPath also offer the course in Spanish ---Crédito al Mérito
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• Debt Freeze
  Since 1968, GreenPath has been certified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide home owners and prospective home owners with housing counseling services. This includes:
  -> Mortgage Default and Delinquency Counseling
  -> First Time Homebuyers Education
  -> Reverse Mortgage Counseling
  -> Home Equity Loan Counseling
  
  
• On Your Own
  This 80-page book, developed by Money Matters, Inc., is a consumer guide to downsizing debt through budgeting, prioritizing bills and working with creditors.