San Mateo County Department of Child Support Services Puts Their Feet, Wallet and Heart to Work

For the tenth year in a row the San Mateo County Department of Child Support Services put their feet to the ground and their money where it matters, the San Mateo County Heart Walk.

San Mateo DCSS raised more than $5,200 for the American Heart Association through various creative fundraisers throughout the several months prior to the San Mateo County Heart Walk event.

The fundraising, coordinated by David Carlos, Child Support Supervisor and Chairperson of the San Mateo DCSS Spirit Committee, begins at least six months before the event. The committee coordinated fundraising events such as salad bars, bake sales, scavenger hunt as well as “penny wars” that get really exciting and full of friendly competition between San Mateo DCSS units. This year was the highest amount raised for the event at $5,252.  

“Our staff are very passionate about giving back to the community,” said Dawn Sparks, San Mateo DCSS Child Support Supervisor. “We have many people in the office who are dedicated to raising money for the heart walk because it hits close to home.”

The Heart Walk event is a county initiative and each county department that wants to participate typically start to fundraise at least six months before the event. San Mateo DCSS had 21 employees on the committee this year and all contributed to social media marketing and fundraising and organizing the department events. San Mateo DCSS is located in the county building so employees from other county departments as well as members of the public who visit the offices also participate in the fundraising events.

After the fundraising events are done, it’s time for the “The Walk.” This year’s Heart Walk was held at Oracle Arena on Thursday, October 20th with people from county departments, private corporations and more participating in the three-mile walk, though some choose to walk only a mile.

Many of the San Mateo DCSS staff wore decorated shirts and tutus to add to the excitement and celebration of the event.

In addition to helping those struggling with heart disease, the fundraising and annual Heart Walk event helps boost employee morale and engagement.

“We have a young staff,” said Sparks. “This generation wants more than just coming to work every day, it’s about relationship building and building a community.”

One San Mateo DCSS employee raises more than $1,000 year after year for the event and enjoys the VIP experience at the Heart Walk full of goodie bags and special access.

"Our employees care about health and well-being, but also enjoy friendly competition, said Kim Cagno, Director of San Mateo County DCSS. “What better way to demonstrate their commitment to children and families than raising funds for the American Heart Association."

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California’s Child Support Program Upgrading Microsoft Office Products

Beginning November 7th, the first of California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) and Option One County employees began upgrading Microsoft computer programs to Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus. It’s a move that will affect every employee in California’s Child Support Program and while there is always a transition period, DCSS’s journey is full of benefits.

The first phase of the migration, the Office application suite, took place November 7th through November 10th for pilot users within State DCSS and Option One Counties. The second phase of the migration includes upgrading Microsoft Exchange email which will begin for pilot users on November 28th and the remaining users December 5th.

CA DCSS is assessing how to procure Office 365 licensing for Option Two and Three counties. Once CA DCSS acquires a solution then the information technology support for those counties will be authorized to upgrade. More information to come on those counties.

Microsoft 365 ProPlus will offer child support employees an opportunity to use instant messaging as well as have the program subscription follow each user to whichever device they’re using instead of limiting the license to a particular device. Each user will be allowed up to five licenses so their access to ProPlus programs may be utilized on workstations, tablets & handheld devices.

For those who like to store their emails for future reference, the allowable inbox size will be increased from five gigabytes to 50 gigabytes, a large amount of memory most users will unlikely exceed. The current 90-day retention policies for emails in a user’s email inbox will remain.

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California Department of Child Support Services Puts the “Lead” in Leadership

In an effort to encourage CA DCSS executives to strengthen their leadership capabilities and lead a movement from the ground up, CA DCSS Director Alisha Griffin and Chief Deputy Director are making available opportunities for executives to attend robust leadership training. There are several different courses currently being offered to CA DCSS leadership including the California Health and Human Services (CHHS) Agency “Leadership Development Academy, a nine-day course that explores ways to improve communication within and across departments and approaches to instill common values throughout the organization. Additionally, participants develop strategies to both lead and manage organizational change efforts and identify the impact of their leadership style on their staff. Through an exploration of best practices in public sector leadership, participants leave with an understanding of how to enhance and expand their skill sets to be effective leaders. CA DCSS Executives Veronica Potter, Regional Administrator and Nan Chen, Chief Financial Officer both recently graduated from the Academy.

In addition to the CHHS Leadership Development Academy, CA DCSS executives and managers are rotating through a two-day leadership program titled “The Leadership Challenge” the department has partnered with Sacramento State University to provide. The course includes team building, reported feedback from staff and colleagues through Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) assessments and promotes the “Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® Model. Several CA DCSS cohorts have already completed the course with positive feedback.

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Placer County Department of Child Support Services Manager Receives Outstanding Manager Award at 2016 Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council Annual Conference

The 2016 Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council’s Outstanding Manager Award went to Susan Dunlap, Program Manager for Placer County Department of Child Support Services (Placer DCSS) for her dedication to improving overall performance and customer service.

In 2012, Susan asked her Staff Services Analyst, Christi Silva, to identify a way to improve the Placer DCSS performance by making data requests more nimble and specific. Christi developed a user-friendly database that could be personalized to each case manager’s needs. If a case manager wished to improve the amount of cases with a court order or increase payments on arrears, all they had to do was ask. Christi could import the exact cases or tasks they were looking for and present it to each case manager through an easy-to-use dashboard interface. 

Susan Dunlap, Program Manager for Placer County DCSS holds
WICSEC Award for Outstanding Manager 2016

The database, later known as the Placer Performance Tool (PPT), improved upon existing databases by delivering targeted tasks and reports to each individual case manager based on the specific goals they wanted to achieve in their caseload.    

Expanding on this success, Susan began constructing the foundation for a new department-wide performance model. Most child support agencies in California rely on one of two performance models, functional or cradle-to-grave. The statewide system encourages these two systems by designating every case into four broad categorizes, Intake; Establishment; Enforcement; and Interstate. The PPT enabled Susan to discard these old models and create one that specifically targeted the Federal Performance Measures.

This was the beginning of the Placer County Stratification model. Instead of a single Enforcement Team, Placer County instituted multiple teams designed to address the specific needs of a case. A newly obtained order would land a case with the Early Intervention Team. If 65 percent or more of the current support obligation was being met, the case transferred to the Maintenance Team. If current support ended, the case moved to the Arrears Only Team. As performance improved, the thresholds for reassignment were altered to accentuate the strengths of each team and keep the numbers moving upward.

All this was made possible by the PPT database. Without it, a case with a court order would merely be labeled as “Enforcement.” Now each specialized team in Placer County knows their exact caseload with its unique characteristics. This has resulted in targeted performance campaigns designed to meet the specific needs of each case. This foresight on Susan’s part, as well as her promotion of this newly developed technology developed by her talented staff, has been instrumental in Placer County’s current success. The new performance model resulted in Placer DCSS improving their overall performance from 41st statewide in 2012 to 18th in 2016. All this while staffing levels within the department were reduced from over 100 down to 44 in 2014.

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Child Support Analyst Receives Award for Groundbreaking Case Management Application

Hiba Salma, an Associate Information Systems Analyst at the California Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) has received the 2016 Outstanding Tech/Line Staff award from the Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council (WICSEC.)

In a significant contribution to the child support collection process, Hiba lead a technical team that installed and configured a new online application for the transmission of child support documents between DCSS and child support agencies in Brazil, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Portugal. Germany and the Netherlands are expected to follow shortly.

Hiba next to her award for Outstanding Tech/Line Staff

This new application, iSupport International Case Management, does away with paper forms and correspondence between DCSS and child support agencies in participating countries.  With iSupport International Case Management, foreign child support documents that were previously sent by mail, taking days or weeks, can now be transmitted instantly.  The system also provides the appropriate forms in the user’s native language, eliminating the added time and expense of translation.

iSupport International Case Management has been in pilot use since mid-February 2016.  The application has been so successful; it has been made the mandatory method of transmitting child support case information between participating countries.
Asked about receiving her award, Hiba said she’s “glad to be able to help people.”

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By: Randy Juster, AGPA

Kern County Department of Child Support Services Receives Award for Committment to Helping Formerly Incarcerated Parents

Kern County Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) received the Program Awareness Award at the 2016 Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council Annual Training Conference held in Utah for their innovative "Incarcerated Parent Program. The program has demonstrated Kern County’s commitment to meeting the needs of customers by improving the delivery of child support services to incarcerated parents.

The program started in 2012 when local child support professionals realized incarcerated mothers and fathers faced barriers within the child support system. A significant challenge these parents have continuously faced is their inability to pay their child support obligations. In fact, many incarcerated parents have past due child support obligations but lack a realistic way to pay them.

According to a study released by the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, the average incarcerated parent with a child support case has $10,000 in past-due support when entering state prison and leaves with past-due balances of $20,000 or more. Not only is this debt unlikely to ever be collected, but it may interfere with the formerly incarcerated parents’ ability to obtain housing and employment in order to support their child. The study also suggests that debt increases the likelihood that non-custodial parents released from incarceration will enter the underground economy and thus avoid paying their child support obligation.  

With these challenges in mind, Kern County DCSS reached out to the Kern County Sheriff Lerdo Detention Facility (Lerdo) to extend child support services to the jail's incarcerated parents. By partnering with each other, Kern County DCSS gained the ability to offer services to a secluded portion of its community and Lerdo Jail acquired a new tool that could have a greater likelihood of releasing inmates with smaller amounts of debt and therefore more chances to reintegrate into society and their children’s lives.

In late 2014, Kern Couny DCSS and Lerdo developed an additional benefit to the Incarcerated Parent Program, the first kiosk in California to offer inmates the opportunity to speak directly to a child support professional. Stationed in a small room, the kiosk uses videoconferencing to allow incarcerated parents to communicate face-to-face with child support professionals in real time. Thanks to the kiosk, parents can attend to their cases and caseworkers can confidentially address parents’ private questions and concerns.

Since its inception, the Kern County DCSS Incarcerated Parent Program has served more than 2,000 incarcerated parents and modified more than 100 child support orders. Through this partnership with Lerdo, Kern County DCSS has had the opportunity to reach and engage parents that may have been overlooked in the past. These parents have developed a relationship with the department that supports their continued engagement in their case upon their release from incarceration. The efforts of this program have supported the reduction of recidivism rates in the Kern County community by educating incarcerated parents about how to manage barriers to future employment such as license suspension and removing child support debt pile up while imprisoned. Studies have shown that a noncustodial parent is more likely to pay child support and otherwise reengage with their families if they consider their child support debt to be manageable.

Kern County DCSS accepted the award in early October.

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