U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children & Families
Office of Child Support Enforcement

Welfare reform legislation has mandated many changes to the child support program. The major changes use electronic technology to communicate, exchange information, and effect financial transactions in ways we would not have imagined 10 or even 5 years ago. For the child support world, as in so many other areas of business, knowledge is power. As part of the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement's (OCSE's) ongoing effort to give technical assistance to States, we are especially interested in equipping the child support worker with the knowledge and tools s/he needs to work efficiently in a world in which technological processes increasingly control how offices function.

Our training course on the expanded Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) is designed to give trainers an overall sense of the communication vehicles, databases, and legislated mandates that have brought about the electronic revolution in child support. We hope to empower—but not overwhelm—trainers with knowledge so that they will take with them an understanding of our partnership with technology and how that partnership can improve the way we do business.

Over a 2-day period trainers will receive information on the expanded FPLS, with individual in-depth discussions of proactive matching, Social Security numbers, CSENet, Federal Offsets, the U.S. Passport Denial remedy, security and privacy, external locate sources, and PRWORA legislation. We welcome your participation which gives us a chance to exchange experiences and learn from each other before returning to our respective States.

The ultimate target audience for this training includes case workers as well as high-level policy, program, systems, and other staff who need knowledge of the expanded FPLS and new technologies related to it. The curricula can easily be adapted to state-specific use and policy, enabling trainers to tailor the material to meet specific audience's educational needs and interests.

To deliver effective training, it is essential that the trainer have a high level of content mastery. The trainer must know the subject matter in depth in order to relay the information needed by the participants in fulfilling their job responsibilities. Knowledge of training techniques is also important, and towards this end we have included "Tips for Trainers" in Appendix C. Trainers may opt to have a training team of two or more individuals who bring the combination of essential training skills and content mastery to the training experience.

The entire curriculum can be covered in 2 days for up to a maximum of 25 participants. Training should be conducted in a classroom setting equipped with a personal computer with approximately 30 megabytes of disk storage and 16 megabytes of available RAM.

Trainers and others who wish assistance or additional training information regarding this curriculum should contact the FPLS Information Line: (202) 401-9267, 7:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., EST.