Young people are increasingly being lured into laundering criminal cash as money mules, robbing them of their confidence and in some cases their future. Fraudsters are using young people to launder money and forcing them to break the law in the process. Those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) may be particularly vulnerable.
With the team at UK Finance and education specialists iChild we designed free, engaging and classroom curriculum compliant PHSE content for both primary (aged 10 - 11) and secondary (aged 11 - 14) pupils. Cross-curricular supporting activities covered English, Drama and Art & Design, to appeal to all types of learners. A poster, student flyer and assembly presentation and parent/carer letter ensured pupils received the message via multiple channels. Responding to teacher feedback, resources were also created for SEND pupils. The content teaches pupils to protect their financial privacy and protect friends and family.
Financial education is not a naturally exciting topic for young people. The rich classroom content we created brings the extremely complex, and hidden, topic of money mules to life for a young audience. Through research, we identified the impact on friends and family would be a key deterrent for young people and this was borne out in the results. The lesson content follows individual stories and we learn from relatable characters how they almost put their friends and family at risk when approached by a criminal offering seemingly easy money.
Lesson plans provide scaffolding to help students reflect and share their understanding of the topic. Lessons offered creative activities around the money mules topic in art, drama and more. These extension activities work particularly well for SEND and/or kinesthetic learners.
To reach teachers we delivered:
Schools marketing: targeted emails to school leaders, teachers and SEND co-ordinators with a focus on areas of high deprivation and special needs schools
Press: targeted outreach to education trade press and regional press activity with case study schools
Stakeholders: work with Young Enterprise to independently ratify the quality of the resources
452 schools signed up and used the resources teaching over 20,000 students and providing valuable information to parents/carers. The school resources and the separate set of specialist SEND resources received the Young Money Financial Education Quality Mark. It’s a stamp of approval giving teachers confidence the material is of the highest educational value. 94% of schools rated content ‘good’ or ‘excellent’
Ultimately, more young people now understand money muling and are less likely to be exploited. Thorough post-campaign research with 12% of participating schools showed 100% of teachers agreed with the following statements: pupils are more likely to say NO to offers of being a money mule and less likely to give their bank details to strangers
Our work was shortlisted for a PR Week award.
