PENNSYLVANIA

BERKS COUNTY WEBSITE

Goal: To provide a cost-effective way to educate, inform, and serve county child support agency clients and attorneys by using web technology, and to share that model with other county child support agencies.

Description: In September 1998, a web site for Berks County Domestic Relations Section was developed to help the public get information on the child support process. In early 1999, printable and downloadable forms in Microsoft Word and HTML formats were added, with Adobe PDF format being added later. In October 1999, a listing of all outstanding bench warrants for defendants who failed to appear for child support proceedings was added along with an online WANTED Poster and E-Tip capability (anonymous tips via the website).

In the site design, efforts were made to insure that information for clients and attorneys was detailed, yet user friendly. Users have several ways to initiate a search and there are links to related web sites.

The forms menuincludes the following, among others:

• Petition to Modify a Support Order
• Plaintiff EFT form
• Direct Deposit authorization form
• Telephone Conference Request
• Medical data Sheet
• Client Feedback Survey

The site's Lawyers Onlyportion, which is restricted to attorneys, offers a variety of forms.

Bench Warrant Listing: Along with the 1000+ warrants listed in alphabetical order, there are photos of particularly hard-to-locate individuals. The site also provides a detective hotline for tipsters who prefer to speak to detectives directly.

E-Inquires: Beginning February 2001, functionality was added to allow clients to send e-inquiries to service workers via an interactive form on the website. A worker then emails the reply to the client via a generic email address. This allows agency workers to send/receive internet emails without revealing an individual worker's unique email address.

Results: Berks County had a population of about 377,000 in 2001. The child support caseload was about 18,000 cases. The site has approximately 30,000 homepage hits per year, and receives approximately 6,000 emails. Both these statistics reflect a high degree of client use given the population size. Anecdotal findings show that a large number of pro-se clients use the downloadable forms found on our web site. The Berks County Domestic Relations Section also refers clients to its website for common client needs for information such as support guidelines, local procedures, and forms. The site's "E-tip" link generates approximately 40 tips per year. The public is encouraged to help county detectives locate these delinquent obligors by calling a detective or submitting a confidential E-Tip. Within 6 months of the beginning of the program, 7 of the 17 profiled on the wanted poster were apprehended.

Three other Pennsylvania counties (Montgomery, Clearfield and Lackawanna) have used the Berks County website as a template and/or have copied extensive amounts of the site content. Other counties have used it to a lesser but significant amount as a model for their own websites. This has saved those counties (and the IV-D program) considerable time and money by simplifying their website development.

Cost: Costs associated with this project totaled $1,080 for the first year, and $155 per year thereafter. In the first year, there were a number of one-time start-up expenditures for software, training and reference books and registration of the site's domain name. The only recurring cost is web hosting fees of $155 a year.

Funding: Regular IV-D funds are used.

Location: This site is accessible through the Web. Site statistics show users throughout the United States and worldwide.

Replication Advice: To receive a copy of the entire Berks website (including HTML documents, style sheets, graphics, and multimedia files) or to obtain additional information, contact the Berks DRS webmaster at: Support.Berks@pacses.com.

Also, the website can be used as a template for any child support agency. Agencies can edit the content to meet their needs, and then design their own website in-house, or use an outside vendor to design the website. Agencies which prefer to design their own website will have to train one to two people in MS Front page or another web editing program.