Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World is a workbook for adults in poverty that shows them how to use the hidden rules of class to build up financial, emotional, social, and other resources. Understanding the hidden rules of the middle class and wealth, and choosing to use them, can open doors to such resources as new relationships and new jobs, among others.

Working in a group with a facilitator, adults who use this workbook will develop a series of mental models to examine their own lives and create new future stories. In 15-20 sessions the participants explore the impact that poverty has had on them, investigate economic realities, complete a self-assessment of their own resources, make plans to build their own resources, and develop a mental model of community prosperity.