This overview summarizes the Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) model’s Counselor Training Standards. The Standards delineate the breadth and depth of the financial content areas, counseling and coaching skills, practice and experiential learning, and socio-economic and cultural context setting necessary to serve the diverse needs and backgrounds of FEC clients. The Standards also include a Code of Ethics that promotes responsible, professional and ethical financial counseling, furthering the profession of one-on-one financial counseling.

All FEC partners are required to train their financial counselors in accordance with the requirements and competencies detailed in these Standards. To facilitate counselor trainings, the CFE Fund has approved national and regional training providers’ courses that align with the Standards; additionally, the CFE Fund encourages local training providers (partner organizations, training consultants, community colleges, or universities) to submit their trainings for CFE Fund evaluation and approval.