What Does a Debt Counselor Do and How Can I Find a Good One?
In today’s difficult economic times, you may be asking, “What does a debt counselor do?” The National Financial Educators Council trains financial counselors through its Certified Personal Financial Wellness Consultant program to help people accomplish their personal finance goals. A NFEC Financial Coach has proven his or her competence and passion for helping others improve their money management fitness, and meets the top criteria in the industry for well-qualified financial and debt counseling services.
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What is the Debt Counselor Description of Qualifications?
If you want to find out ‘what does a debt counselor do,’ for instance, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes how debt settlement companies operate. In contrast, look at the criteria the NFEC has set for its NFEC Financial Coach graduates to meet. While any people could call themselves debt counselors, NFEC Financial Coaches are noteworthy because they must comply with strict requirements for education, experience, and background. They’ve passed hundreds of hours of coursework, a challenging final exam, and a rigorous background check. They meet stringent standards drawn from the educational, psychological, and consumer/financial protection fields. Those industries informed the NFEC qualification criteria because debt counselors must deal with clients’ money information, a sensitive and emotional subject. NFEC Financial Coaches are tasked with identifying clients’ necessities and goals and giving them top-notch education, support, and accountability to gently guide them toward financial wellness.
What Does a Debt Counselor Do on Average?
We conducted recent research to answer the question, “What does a debt counselor do?” from the point of view of a prospective client. We systematically searched Google using the search term ‘financial counseling,’ and 137 websites came up in the first 50 pages of results. Of that number, just 26 had price and package information easy to locate on the site. The top service – on average – was direct contact and talk with the debt counselor. The second most common was educational resource provision. Only a scant handful would give clients personal finance plans, and just 2 were able to revise those plans as new data came available.
The Clarification and Planning Phase
The Educational and Directional Phase
The next phase in the debt counselor description involved Kevin meeting on a regular basis with the debt coach/counselor to get guidance and educational materials as he worked through his priority steps. Kevin got personalized resources to help him make important decisions, and kept his counselor up-to-date on his progress so he could recommend any indicated changes to Kevin’s plan as milestones were reached.
The Supporting and Maintaining Phase
What does a credit counselor do in the case when clients reach a place where their pressing priorities have been dealt with and they have a clear understanding of how to work toward their far-reaching goals? At this point they move into support and maintenance. For example, in Kevin’s case, his financial counselor remained close at hand via email should he need help with a timely decision, but for the most part let Kevin move onward on his own.
Linkage with Guidance from Expert Areas
The final item in the debt counselor description is where NFEC Financial Coaches have capability to link clients with experts from various specialty areas of knowledge. The NFEC’s team of professionals can offer assistance to reach specific goals the NFEC Financial Coach may not have sufficient expertise to address fully. Moreover, these experts maintain 100% obligation to the client’s best interests – meaning they do not attempt to market any financial products.
