Financial management and job social skills training components in a summer business institute: a controlled evaluation in high achieving predominantly ethnic minority youth.

Donohue et al. (2005) ran a summer business camp for high-achieving minority teens. They split the teens into two groups. One group got job social skills training. The other got money management lessons.

Both groups took classes, practiced, and got feedback. Then the researchers checked who learned what.

The job skills group earned better work ratings and more job recommendations. The money group gained more finance facts. Each training beat the other in its own lane.

Skills stuck to their targets. Social lessons lifted work scores. Money lessons lifted money scores.

Rosales et al. (2019) used the same teach-rehearse-feedback steps with young adults with autism. Their trainees also mastered job interview answers. The pattern shows BST works across ages and diagnoses.

Ethridge et al. (2024) taught budgeting to justice-involved males in custody. They used shorter lessons plus feedback and still saw gains. The two studies look different, but both prove brief money lessons can build real skills.

Gillian et al. (2016, 2018) stretched the summer model into 21-day residential life-skills camps for youth with physical disabilities. They kept the focus on social interaction and choice. Results stayed positive, showing the camp idea travels to new groups.

You can copy the split-focus idea. Pair short social-skills drills with short money drills. Let each track own its goal. Teens leave with two résumé lines instead of one. Run it in any after-school slot or summer program.