Over the past six years, Carmen Daniels, ICAN cofounder and Research Manager has been examining ICAN’s financial counselling practice in a First Nations context, as part of her doctorate studies. A key outcome from the study has been the development of a theoretical model of First Nations financial counselling. The model provides a seminal theoretical framework for understanding the strategies and conditions that underpin the work of First Nations financial counsellors at ICAN and the approach of the organisation more broadly. It is a grounded theory model of First Nations-led financial counselling developed from the experience of the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network (ICAN) and as such, locates the experience of one organisation within the broader financial counselling discipline.
How does the model work?
Financial counselling is understood as a complex intervention due to its ability to provide responsive crisis support but to also link people with specialised individual and community level resources to aid a greater sense of well-being and help them live well in their communities [1]. The model offers a seminal framework for understanding how this work happens: what knowledge systems are used, what strategies are applied, and what conditions need to be present for those strategies to be enacted. It positions First Nations financial counselling as both a workforce capability and a knowledge system, and provides a theoretical framework for why and how First Nations financial counsellors utilise specific knowledge systems to navigate and shift the conditions of financial and consumer detriment.
It makes visible the complexity of working at the cultural interface where First Nations and non-First Nations knowledge systems intersect [2], [3]. At this interface, financial counsellors must navigate systems that uphold a ‘corpus of objectified knowledge’ about First Nations peoples, knowledge that is produced externally from non-Indigenous standpoints and values [2], [3]. When working at this interface, First Nations financial counsellors must traverse multiple spaces, knowledges and differentials of power in continuous negotiation with financial and government systems, to legitimise First Nations ways of being within these systems [2], [3].
At the heart: two knowledge systems become ‘situated’ through practice
Knowledge system 1: Cultural knowledges, standpoints and ontologies. First Nations financial counsellors bring cultural knowledges, standpoints and ontologies to practice [4]. These are shaped by an ontological position – one’s view on ‘the nature of reality’ and an epistemological stance of how knowledge is obtained and understood [4]. The specific knowledges of being a First Nations financial counsellor working with First Nations peoples and communities, especially one’s own, bring one’s own personhood, identity and the cultural self into practice.
Knowledge system 2: Financial counselling knowledge and practice. The second knowledge system utilised is one’s financial counselling knowledge system. This is a unique blend of financial counselling training, understanding of the financial and legal systems a financial counsellor needs to interact with, interpersonal skills, counselling skills, local knowledges and application of the national standards and the Australian financial counselling code of ethical practice [5], [6].
When these two systems meet: situated (or ‘situational’) knowledge systems. In this process, the dialogical self of the First Nations financial counsellor undergoes a transformative process of being shaped ‘in constant interaction and exchange between social worlds’ [7]. In this iterative and interactive process, the dialogical self is formatted and reformatted in the process of connecting knowledge systems through practice: cultural knowledges and standpoints with the financial counselling framework of practice. This produces two things: a dialogically formed identity of being both First Nations and a financial counsellor, and a situational knowledge system. Through one’s dialogically formed identity and using this situational knowledge system, the First Nations financial counsellor makes the cultural self visible, making First Nations ways of being and knowing explicit within dominant systems.
Four conditions that underpin four strategies
In a financial counselling practice setting, the financial counsellor works directly with clients about their presenting issue(s) across several systems to be able to address and seek resolution on behalf of the client. In doing so, the financial counsellor works interchangeably across the four strategies, where four key conditions of navigating cultural and financial systems, connections and relationships, commitment to empowerment, and access and opportunity for interacting across multiple levels and elements, underpin how the strategies are enacted.
- Navigating cultural and financial systems: drawing upon one’s own situated knowledge to assist clients to navigate cultural and external dominant systems.
- Connections and relationships: are central conditions for how financial counselling is delivered. These convey the relational space the financial counsellor occupies, both ontologically (one’s way of being and the relational self [8]) and in the delivery of practice.
- Commitment to empowerment: a developmental orientation that supports the empowerment of clients and communities while simultaneously seeking removal of structural barriers at systems levels.
- Access and opportunities for interacting across multiple levels and elements: This condition embodies a complex web of knowledge and interaction required by the financial counsellor.
It captures the complexity of working across multiple, interchangeable levels and stakeholders
at the same time: supporting clients, negotiating with creditors, translating information back to clients, moving laterally to inform peers and gather new information that may assist the client’s matter. The client matter may inform systems advocacy work, which might require the financial counsellor to feed into policy campaigns, submissions to government or involve participation in advisory and advocacy groups. The information from the systems advocacy efforts may need translating or transmitting to client groups, whole communities and possibly wider societal outlets such as media. At any given time, the financial counsellor holds all these levels, and the separate knowledges required to engage with each simultaneously, as part of the daily process of financial counselling service delivery.
The four strategies of advocacy, education, capacity building and a community development approach, outline four fundamental areas that the financial counsellor works across when engaging in client casework, interacting with stakeholders to directly address the client’s matter and how the financial counsellor operates across key functions of their service delivery. They are key strategies in the First Nations-led financial counselling process that operate at multiple levels and in the relational spaces occupied by the First Nations financial counsellor.
- Advocacy: advocacy and education strategies simultaneously where on the one hand, the financial counsellor may be negotiating a specific arrangement around a client’s debt, but on the other hand, is concurrently educating the creditor on why First Nations’ ways of being are valid and why they should be upheld in a negotiation process. In this model, the strategy of advocacy relates to advocating for systems to recognise First Nations’ ways of being, knowing and doing to be recognised by and embedded into dominant systems.
- Education: educating the creditor around First Nations’ ways of being and knowing and how these underpin the client’s position. This requires the financial counsellor to transmit a great deal of knowledge that is derived from the self, drawing upon one’s own histories, legacies of intergenerational trauma, cultural understandings, identities and personhood in the advancement of both outcomes for the client’s situation and in efforts to advocate for changes to be made at systems levels. The onus on the First Nations financial counsellor to have to draw upon these parts of self in a client negotiation process highlights an unspoken responsibility placed upon the financial counsellor that is not yet wholly recognised. It is what separates First Nations financial counselling from other mainstream forms of financial counselling, and demonstrates how the self is embedded into one’s practice.
- Capacity building: demonstrates the developmental aspects of financial counselling and highlights why the underlying condition of commitment to empowerment is inextricably linked to its success. In practice, a financial counsellor advocates and educates, but in doing so, is building the capacity of key stakeholders at multiple levels.
- Community development approach: is a dimension of First Nations financial counselling that involves the broader community in a financial counselling intervention and may involve tackling issues facing individuals, at systems and broader community levels.
Examples of practice
We provide three examples of ICAN’s practice. The first two examples highlight how financial counsellors draw upon their own cultural knowledges and thus oneself, during the financial counselling process. The third example describes the ways in which financial counsellors may also tackle issues at a community level. Finally, we highlight an example of how an external financial counselling service embodied this model early in the development of First Nations-led financial counselling in Australia.
Example 1: In an archival case work matter, a First Nations financial counsellor drew upon one’s own cultural knowledges when a company questioned the validity of the client’s cultural obligations relating to a tombstone opening ceremony. The financial counsellor did so by both educating the company and advocating for this way of being to be upheld in the negotiation process, while at the same time assisting the client to navigate this system, building the capacity of the client to undertake elements of the financial counselling process himself.
Example 2: The model demonstrates how one’s situated knowledge system can be drawn upon for wider system recognition. In one external dispute resolution (EDR) matter, ICAN financial counsellors prepared a statement on the importance of upholding cultural obligations relating to sharing money with family members, drawing from their own standpoint and cultural knowledge, when acting on behalf of a First Nations client in a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority [9]. The outcome was a determination that may be used as a precedent for future decisions. Here, a situated knowledge contribution supported a client outcome and created a foothold for broader systems change.
Example 3: ICAN’s longest-running issue has been the sale of faulty vehicles attached to high-interest finance, where the life of the loan often outlasts the life of the vehicle. ICAN’s publications have highlighted how individual cases form a cross-section of a broader, systemic consumer harm affecting discrete First Nations communities [10], [11]. Predatory ‘ease of access’ business models can exploit barriers that First Nations peoples face in purchasing vehicles, adding higher-interest brokerage, junk insurance, and poor transparency about vehicle condition [12], [13], [14]. These harms are compounded by barriers to redress for example, the cost and complexity of obtaining evidence and accessing QCAT when vehicles fail [10], [14].
In addition to assisting individuals and families in one-to-one case work, ICAN sought options for how it could assist the community to build their own capabilities to mitigate the systemic issue. In partnership with the Wujal Wujal community, ICAN [15] engaged the Royal Automotive Club of Queensland (RACQ) to provide a free pre-purchase vehicle inspection workshop to community residents. In the workshop, RACQ staff provided education about how to carry out their own basic car inspections, where Wujal residents learned how to check for certain issues including defects and functional faults, which can prevent more significant problems down the line [15]. Post-workshop, the RACQ has extended to the provision of free pre-purchase car inspections to First Nations peoples engaged with the ICAN service, catalysing a broader RACQ program partnership with the Queensland Government to make the free pre-purchase car inspections available state-wide.
This model of First Nations financial counselling has historical underpinnings in the emergence of First Nations’ knowledges and cultural approaches in early financial counselling and capability programs delivered specifically for First Nations populations. Early programs such as ICAN’s community-based Consumer Liaison Officer network model delivered across Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) communities in Queensland and CatholicCare (formerly CentaCare) Wilcannia-Forbes’ Manage Your Income – Manage Your Life (MYIMYL) have informed how First Nations-led financial counselling has developed over time. MYIMYL was a foundational program that delivered financial counselling and capability services within a community development framework [16], [17]. The program approached its work through the ethos that First Nations peoples’ approach to money is grounded within cultural and relational frameworks and that financial counselling and capability services must be delivered within a context that provides meaning for the person [16], [17]. The emergent nature of these approaches across the disciplines highlighted the marked difference for how these services operate in a First Nations paradigm, compared to mainstream financial counselling and capability services, and continue to inform the development of First Nations-led financial counselling today.
Limitations and acknowledgements
Since 2008, ICAN has supported First Nations-led financial counselling by developing First Nations financial counsellors through its Mentorship Program and the Diploma of Financial Counselling through ICAN Learn. However, it is only one service supporting this growing movement and the theoretical model is limited to practice of one organisation. It does not attempt to speak for contributions by other organisations to the growing movement of First Nations financial counselling in Australia. ICAN acknowledges the advancements made to this movement by key organisations: CatholicCare (formerly CentreCare) Wilcannia-Forbes, Financial Counselling Australia, Anglicare NT, the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, the Financial Rights Legal Centre and Mob Strong Debt Help, who have aided and continue to advance the development of First Nations-led financial counselling.
Contact Carmen at: carmen.daniels@ican.org.au or: 0412 357 888 for further information.
Carmen Daniels is Nêhiyaw (Cree) and Métis from amiskwacîwâskahikan (Beaver Hills House, where the city of Edmonton resides upon) in Treaty 6 Territory and Métis Nation of Alberta Region 4, in the province of Alberta, Canada living in Cairns, Queensland for twenty-five years. She is a qualified financial counsellor and cofounder of the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network. The research study: Providing financial information, support and advocacy services: A grounded theory study of First Nations-led financial counselling was conducted on Gimuy, Gunggandji and Mandingalbay Yidinji countries and was supported by Central Queensland University, the Indigenous Consumer Assistance Network, the Australian Government, the late Dr Anton Mischewski, Financial Counselling Australia, Financial Counselling Queensland and the Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire Council.
Citation suggestion (inclusive of article text):
Daniels, C. (2026). Providing financial information, support and advocacy services: A grounded theory study of First Nations-led financial counselling. [Doctoral dissertation, Central Queensland University]. https://doi.org/10.25946/32019558.
References
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