The world of finance—credit, budgeting, loans, and so on—can be intimidating. Most of us aren't given a guidebook, and young people especially can find themselves lost at sea when trying to figure it all out. That’s why Youth Job Center offers free financial coaching and education to help Chicagoland youth create the financial reality they want for themselves, whether that involves renting an apartment, tackling debt, buying a car, or simply building a budget.

Core Financial Services

In 2020, Youth Job Center became one of 11 Financial Opportunity Center® sites in the Chicagoland region, in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. As a registered Financial Opportunity Center® site, YJC provides clients with a wide range of financial services to help them develop basic financial literacy and health, learn how to budget, access income supports, and more.

YJC pairs these services with access to an equally wide range of supportive services, including resources to help young people address barriers like unstable housing, involvement with the criminal justice system, lack of childcare resources, and more.

We offer young people assistance with:

• Opening a checking and/or savings accounts

• Best practices for renting a first apartment or buying a first car

• Developing monthly budgets

• Reducing expenses and increasing net monthly income

• Understanding the basics of building wealth

• Accessing and applying for income supports such as SNAP, TANF, utility assistance, children’s health insurance, and more

• Understanding and building credit

• Making better financial decisions

• Financial goal planning

Clients receive basic training on all these topics as part of our Workforce Readiness Training program. Clients in need of additional support can work one-on-one with our financial coach to receive more personalized assistance and in-depth education on the financial topics most relevant to their life situations.

Additional Resources

In addition to education and coaching, we offer workshops, savings opportunities, and other interactive resources to help young people build their financial toolkits. See below for what we’re offering clients at the moment.

The Impact of Financial Coaching

Let YJC clients Alex and Dejah tell you for themselves how one-on-one financial coaching turns into concrete life changes.

Youth Job Center’s Financial Opportunity Center® programming is provided in partnership with:

Financial Opportunity Center® (FOC) sites are career and personal finance service centers that help low- to moderate-income people focus on the financial bottom line with integrated delivery of employment services, financial coaching and accessing income supports. LISC supports a national network of 100 Financial Opportunity Center® sites in more than 30 cities across the country. Financial Opportunity Center® sites focus on the financial bottom line for low-to- moderate income individuals. This means changing people's financial behavior in a way that encourages them to make a long-term commitment to increasing income, decreasing expenses and acquiring assets. 

 The FOC model involves integrated services delivery of three "core" services: Employment Services, Financial Education and Coaching, Income Supports Access. The Financial Opportunity Center® model is not a distinct program or organizational entity, but rather, a new way for agencies to conceptualize and approach their work. As such, the model is deployed within the existing infrastructure of established, community-based institutions that have a track record of providing at least one of the three core services (and, in the case of most FOC sites, a multitude of other social, financial or educational services).

Meet the Team