ACC program invests in Airmen

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LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) --   Its not uncommon for Airmen to experience financial hardship and careers and the mission usually hang in the balance.

Results from an Airman Financial Hardship survey covering 5000 respondents Air Force-wide confirmed that financial mismanagement has an overwhelming impact on mission readiness and personnel retention.

Though Air Force Personal Financial Management Programs, or PFMP, have always offered workshops and seminars, one-on-one counseling, and educational resources, successes were limited.

A large number of service members were not getting the help they needed because there were just not enough experts to handle the increasing demand, said Ms. Gayle Brinkley, a community readiness consultant at the Family Matters Branch.

This situation led Lt. Gen. Bruce Wright, ACC vice commander, to ask the commands Integrated Delivery System team to check the feasibility of developing a volunteer program to augment PFMP. They started by looking at programs in the other services and found a comprehensive program being used by the Navy.

The Navy Command Financial Specialist Program provides proactive financial education and training to service-members and leadership involvement.

The Unit Financial Specialist Program weve established is closely aligned with most aspects of the Navys CFS program, Ms. Brinkley said. We blued their training materials for use at the base level and have been invited by the Navy to let our family support PFM staff attend their train-the-trainer course.

Not only is the course excellent, it has also saved the Air Force thousands of training dollars, Ms. Brinkley said.

ACC Family Matters monitors the course when we have attendees and spends time each day with Air Force attendees to ensure that they will be able to effectively implement a UFS program when they return to their base.

The UFS volunteers get one week of intense training aimed at preparing them for duty as the first line of financial assistance for Airmen.

A survey conducted at Ellsworth AFB during the pilot program, revealed that there were initial reservations from all parties involved. However, by midway through the testing period the most skeptical commanders were requesting to have more UFS volunteers trained.

UFS volunteers can provide basic budgeting education, help to resolve minor checkbook or credit problems, and can ensure Airmen with real financial difficulties are placed in the right channels for assistance before the problem becomes overwhelming or the Airman is in difficulty with their career, Ms. Brinkley said.

Feedback from participants has been positive and since the program is fairly new, UFS looks forward to measuring its initial impact.

We already have people whove told us that they wished they had something like this earlier in their careers as young Airmen.