The members of the Bankruptcy and Creditors Rights section of the Allen County Bar Association, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, are active participants in the CARE Program. With funding from various sources, including the CARE Foundation, they have underwritten the production of a half-hour video and teaching materials for use with high school students. This video, titled "Taking Control of Your Credit" has been produced by the local public broadcasting station, PBS 39, as part of its video field trip series and has recently been distributed to every high school in the station’s twenty-two county viewing area in Northeast Indiana, Southern Michigan, and Northwest Ohio, as well as to all of the public libraries in Allen County, Indiana. It will also be broadcast as part of the station’s programing, beginning January 29, 2009.

The video was specifically developed to be used with, and is directed to, high school students. It is a financial literary program, based upon the lessons of the CARE program, designed to teach young people about credit, how to use it wisely, and the dangers of misusing it, so that they can be better prepared to operate in our credit-based society. The video is accompanied by a ninety-page teachers’ guide which contains definitions of terms, lesson plans, grading rubrics, suggested teaching techniques, exercises, and sample tests to help present the material in the classroom. The entire package has been keyed to national educational standards, which will allow it to easily mesh with a school’s curriculum.

These materials are freely available to be used by schools and local CARE Programs outside the Fort Wayne area. I encourage you to take the opportunity to download and watch the video, review its accompanying materials, and consider taking advantage of what it has to offer.