Many Croatian citizens have serious over-indebtedness problems, one of the most important determinants of social exclusion. The proposed project consists of two phases. The first phase will be oriented towards analysing the situation. In contrast, the second one will comprise advice and counselling services to youth and employees in the social welfare centres, which directly work with persons with social problems. In the first phase, an Analysis of the adverse impact of personal over-indebtedness will be prepared. The second part of the project will be the establishment of the Consumer Debt Laboratory – which will organise training in the field of "financial literacy" with particular emphasis on the types of indebtedness and ways to avoid this problem. Training would be held for two groups – young people to prevent their future over-indebtedness and employees in the centres for social welfare (CWS). Very often young population lack practical financial skills and is insufficiently acquainted with the situation in the labour market. Planned activities include around 20-25 webinars (or live workshops, depending on the case of the COVID-19 pandemic) within various educational institutions with about 50 participants per group, mainly high-school and university students. In Croatia, the CWSs are legal persons founded by the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, and Family and Social Policy (21 in total). There are numerous obligations of employees in the CSW, and providing council services related to over-indebtedness will be one additional obligation. It can be an essential measure to prevent many other social problems. Social workers often state that their financial literacy knowledge is fragile, and they stress the need for this improvement. Therefore, this part of the project will be primarily dedicated to the enhancement of the financial literacy of social workers employed to encourage the better provision of aid services to persons in need.

Project number: 101055238
Project name: Partnership for prevention of over-indebtedness
Project acronym: PPOI
Type of action: SMP Project Grants
Granting authority: European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency
Project duration: 18 months
 

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