Royal offers a series of financial education lessons at five county jails and four state Department of Correction prisons and one juvenile detention center in Wisconsin. We also have a partnership with Hennepin County jail in Minnesota. The program has been adapted to be offered either in-person or virtually to best meet the needs of each facility.
Royal’s correctional facility program supports a marginalized population. We believe it can play a small role in creating the systematic change that is necessary in our society. Students in the program showed statistically significant gains in content knowledge, attitudes, and confidence levels regarding financial literacy. In the words of one student, referring to Royal's instructor, "She treated me like a person, that doesn't always happen." The program recently recognized with a Wisconsin Governor’s Financial Literacy Award. Our hope is that other credit unions across the country will use this resource as a guide to creating their own correctional facility programming.