PROVIDENCE – Instead of the A-B-Cs, financial literacy, the new education trend, is all about the 1-2-3s. Required reading materials include accounting ledgers, check books, credit card statements, Medicare brochures and mortgage contracts.

This new road to higher financial learning has been paved by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the Wall Street implosion and the struggles of recession.

Working for physical and mental health, Jewish Family Service (JFS) has begun offering financial literacy courses aimed at sound fiscal health – an innovative service from the Rhode Island social service agency. The JFS program, funded with a $100,000 grant from Domestic Bank, is an acknowledgement – if anyone needed the reminder – that individual well-being rests on a bottom-line of sane money management.

Shedding the taboo of discussing such things, JFS values the issues around money. Many families have begun sharing budgeting matters with each other openly and routinely. Fiscal organization is a required subject in many high schools. Synagogues and churches are also encouraging congregants to balance their personal statements.

“In response to this financial crisis, we have an opportunity to do what we should have been doing all along,” says Rabbi Elyse Wechterman of Congregation Agudas Achim in Attleboro, Mass. “Financial decisions are extensions of the most dearly held values informed by our tradition, says Rabbi Wechterman. “Fiscal soundness is an expectation and requirement from a tradition that views money as another opportunity to honor God.”

Rabbi Wechterman plans to offer JFS’ financial literacy program to the post-bat and bar mitzvah students at Agudas Achim. She also figures the temple can become a resource for members who need help writing a resume or learning other aspects of earning. “They may be hesitant to ask at a more traditional social service center.”

Likewise, JFS must educate its clients to ask for more, although the social service center has long focused on money management as an integral part of its Adoption Options program.

Before families can adopt children through the agency, they must submit to a thorough vetting of monetary resources as part of the home study process. Likewise, in therapy, issues of financial chaos and need frequently come up. Betsy Alper, a LICSW and JFS staffer who heads the adoption and counseling programs at JFS, was instrumental in crafting the syllabus for financial literacy.

JFS’ Eliza Sher, LICSW, was tapped to coordinate the program. Sher says one client, a welfare recipient, recently reached the conclusion about the way the world works: “Kids need to understand,” the client told Sher, “if you have good credit, you can get anything you want.”

The JFS program on financial literacy is slated to roll out in earnest later this summer and fall. Sher has conducted a presentation at the Met (Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center) in cooperation with the Housing Network of Rhode Island.

“The feeling I got from that assembly is that kids are just hungry to know,” Sher says. “They were riveted. There was no looking around the room, no side talking. They are thinking about jobs, work and money.”

A seminar on financial literacy for same-sex couples was also offered early in June at the offices of Rhode Island Pride.

On Aug. 27, financial literacy lessons about the so-called “sandwich generation” – those caught between paying for their children at college and helping elderly parents care for themselves – will be offered at the JCC. The first in a series will be a panel discussion dealing with various crucial topics, such as saving for retirement and a child’s education at the same time; caring for your aging parents; and how to advocate for your elder effectively.

JFS’ CEO Erin Minior originally envisioned the financial literacy initiative ending after two years. Because of the overwhelming relevancy of the topic, she now sees it continuing: “During the life span, people have different experiences and challenges with financial literacy. We’re trying to reach out to the Jewish community and beyond. We’re opening the door on this and how it affects everybody.” The program has also created very untraditional partnerships such as JFS enjoys with the volunteering CPAs.

“I’m excited about this because it’s an exciting topic,” says Sher. “A lot of people’s dysfunction can be expressed by how they handle money. I feel Americans really had a block to learning how to handle money. Now they’re ready. This is a moment of unusual receptivity.”

Jewish Family Service of Rhode Island is a beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island.