South Kingstown, RI – November 13, 2013. Sara Johnson, PhD, Senior Vice President at Pro-Change Behavior Systems, Inc. will address the International Forum for Investor Education in Rio de Janeiro on December 10 & 11, 2013.
Pro-Change has been invited to present at the International Forum for Investor Education by the Head of the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM), the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil. At the two-day meeting, Dr. Johnson will introduce the Transtheoretical Model to financial regulators and provide examples of how Pro-Change has collaborated with experts, including Jean Chatzky and Stacey Tisdale, to apply best practices in behavior change to improve financial well-being with adults and youth.
As part of Brazil’s National Strategy for Financial Education, the CVM collaborates with other federal and private organizations to deliver financial education to adults and children in Brazil. There has been an increasing awareness among the organizers of the Forum for Investor Education of the need to include behavior change theory in financial education. Jose Alexandre Vasco, the Head of the CVM said, “I personally think the Transtheoretical Model could be a key resource to design effective behavior change projects. There is a serious concern among some research papers questioning the effectiveness of education with regard to financial capability. What those studies do not capture is the quality of techniques employed, which I think are still lacking a logic model to shape the design of the intervention. I think the Transtheoretical Model fills that gap.”
While in Rio, Dr. Johnson will also meet with the CVM leadership to explore potential research opportunities to examine the effectiveness of Transtheoretical Model-based financial well-being intervention in Brazil.
In September of this year, Pro-Change provided two onsite trainings in Sao Paulo at the request of Carevolution, a Wellness company located in Brazil that offers Wellness Coach training and services.