Part 1 of Webinar Series: Understanding Economic Abuse & Conducting Safe Financial Assessments

Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 1:00 PM ET

This webinar is free and offers 1.0 CE credit for CFP® professionals and AFC® professionals.

Erika Sussman, JD, LLM, Founder & Executive Director, Center for Survivor Agency and Justice

Katie VonDeLinde, MSW, LCSW, Expert Advisor, Center for Survivor Agency and Justice; Senior Lecturer, Washington University in St. Louis

Survivors of domestic violence frequently experience economic abuse, a pattern of behaviors used to control a person’s ability to acquire, use, and maintain financial resources. Survivors may face employment interference, restricted access to money, hidden or depleted assets, damaged credit, coerced debt, and other financial barriers that limit their options for safety and long-term stability.

Financial planners can play an important complementary role in helping survivors understand their financial circumstances, evaluate options, and develop practical and effective financial plans. However, if they do not account for coercive control and privacy concerns and the survivor’s priorities, traditional financial planning approaches may be unintentionally unsafe, unrealistic, or retraumatizing.

In this free, CE-eligible two-part webinar series, Katie VonDeLinde, MSW, LCSW, and Erika Sussman, JD, LLM, will provide financial planners with a survivor-centered and trauma-informed framework for working with clients who have experienced domestic violence and economic abuse. Participants will learn how to recognize economic abuse, conduct safer financial assessments, adapt financial planning strategies for survivors, and collaborate effectively with domestic violence advocates and other community professionals. The Center for Survivor Agency and Justice will provide participants with access to its online resources and national networks, to support survivor-centered, trauma-informed financial planning.

This foundational webinar introduces financial planners to coercive control and economic abuse and examines how abuse can shape a survivor’s financial circumstances, choices, and ability to carry out financial recommendations. Participants will explore common forms of economic abuse, including employment interference, education sabotage, restricted access to income, hidden assets, credit destruction, identity theft, and coerced debt.

The session will also focus on how to gather financial information without creating additional trauma or increasing risk. Participants will learn how to ask questions in ways that center the survivor’s safety, goals, values, and autonomy; recognize when standard documentation or communication practices may increase danger; and identify when referral or coordination with domestic violence advocates, legal services, credit specialists, or other community resources is needed.

• Recognize common forms of economic abuse and explain how they can affect a survivor’s safety, financial stability, and decision-making.
• Identify ways that traditional financial assessment practices may create risk, reinforce power imbalances, or unintentionally retraumatize survivors.
• Apply trauma-informed, survivor-centered strategies when asking questions, collecting financial information, and clarifying a client’s goals and priorities.
• Increase financial planners’ confidence in supporting survivors of domestic violence with financial planning
• Recognize situations that require referral to or coordination with domestic violence advocates, attorneys, credit counselors, or other specialized resources.

• A recording will be available to attendees following the event
• This webinar offers 1.0 CE credit for CFP® professionals and AFC® professionals

This webinar is sponsored by Fidelity Investments