This three-year grant responds to 2006 Priority Area Two: Increasing Child Support Enforcement/Efficiencies through Increasing Levels of Automation or Re-engineering Business Practices." The project, "California Resolves," proposes to re-engineer California's business processes for order establishment and modification by incorporating alternative dispute resolution processes into both the child support program and the judicial system.

The project will offer parents the opportunity to participate in a collaborative negotiation conference conducted in the local child support office and in a mediation conducted by the local court family law facilitator, with the goal of reaching a stipulated agreement establishing or modifying a child support order. California's Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), particularly its judicial officers and its family law facilitators, will collaborate with DCSS and will provide mediation services for project cases.

This proposal will test whether establishing and modifying child support orders through alternative dispute resolution processes increases current support orders, speed of order establishment and modification and parent satisfaction with outcomes, as compared to establishing and modifying orders through the traditional courtroom processes.

This three-year grant responds to 2006 Priority Area Two: Increasing Child Support Enforcement/Efficiencies through Increasing Levels of Automation or Re-engineering Business Practices." The Colorado Department of Human Services Division of Child Support Enforcement plans to collaborate with the Colorado Judicial Department to plan, implement and evaluate a process to allow for electronic filing of child support cases with the court. It builds on work conducted by the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement to encourage collaboration between courts and child support agencies, and specifically on work to create an adaptable means of electronic case filing and information exchange.

Over the course of the project, planning for electronic filing and automated information exchange will occur on both the state and county level. Two pilots of the system will be designed and implemented, first in a mid-sized judicial district and then in a larger judicial district. These pilots will include extensive process evaluations, and the results will be used to revise the system as needed prior to a gradual state-wide roll-out of the automated filing system in the third year of the project grant. The evaluation will also document the planning and implementation process to help guide other states through the issues they are likely to confront in automating child support filings, and will explore the impact of electronic filings on time savings, staff savings and cost savings for both the child support program and the Judicial Department.

This two-year grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 1: Timely Revision of Orders Based on Ability to Pay for Categories of Persons Affected by Lowered Pay (Layoffs, Military Personnel, and/or Prisoners) and Provision of Related Services. This project will test a new approach to modifying orders for District of Columbia prisoners. The District of Columbia recently enacted a law that requires judges to inform individuals being sentenced to prison that they have the right to petition the court for a modification of their child support order. It also requires that the court give individuals the opportunity to fill out a petition for modification during their sentencing hearing. This grant will allow CSSD to reach as many obligors going to prison as possible.

CSSD will also use this grant to develop and implement a method of identifying obligors already in prison who have a current support order and offering them assistance in completing and processing petitions for modification if circumstances warrant. In this way, CSSD hopes to eliminate the backlog cases involving inmates that need an order modification.

This grant will benefit CSSD by allowing it to increase its services to this hard-to-serve population and improve its performance. It will also serve to strengthen ties to the District criminal justice agencies and the broader community. Ultimately, it is hoped that this project will improve ex-prisoners' chances of successfully re-integrating in their communities once they are released from prison and make it easier for them to pay child support.

This two-year grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 1: Timely Revision of Orders Based on Ability to Pay for Categories of Persons Affected by Lowered Pay (Layoffs, Military Personnel, and/or Prisoners) and Provision of Related Services. DHR/CSEA has established relationships with Maryland correctional institutions in an effort to address the child support needs of the incarcerated non custodial parent (NCP) population. The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and DHR/CSEA recently sponsored a study that illustrates the need for a comprehensive approach to serving the child support needs of the incarcerated NCP population.

The Maryland DHR/CSEA proposes to establish a program to aggressively and proactively review and, if appropriate, modify child support orders for the NCPs and, when released, assist them in obtaining employment. Project Fresh Start will be established in Prince George's County.

This three-year project responds to 2006 Priority Area 3: Improved Child Support Results through Collaboration with Child Welfare Agencies. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Division of Child Support Enforcement project will establish a pilot site in Nebraska's Southeast Service Area in order to refine protocols and procedures, and establish best practices which will enable the Child Support Enforcement Division to improve communication and information sharing with Nebraska's Child Protection and Safety Division, district courts, county/juvenile courts, and other entities. These refinements and enhancements have the potential of providing significant benefits for children and families, including an increase in support and medical orders for children in IV-D cases, reduced out-of-home placements for children and fewer delays in establishing permanence for children.

The approach will incorporate the creation of two new multi-disciplinary Child Support Enforcement caseworkers and the development of bridging software to allow parallel automated data tracking systems to share information. The project evaluation will inform future policy development and the implementation of lessons learned to the remaining Nebraska Service Areas.

This three-year project responds to 2006 Priority Area 3: Improved Child Support Results through Collaboration with Child Welfare Agencies. This project focuses on developing and implementing automation and business practices that support four objectives: an expedited referral of child welfare cases to the child support agency for establishment and enforcement services; the use of locate tools available from the child support agency to locate nonresidential fathers and parental kin for child welfare cases; develop a unified message from both agencies to strengthen the father's role in families; and reduce arrears among reunified families.

The expected outcomes in the shared caseload are increases in the number of cases with orders, the amount of current support paid, and cases with private healthcare coverage. The Child Welfare agency should realize positive changes in its performance measures and child outcomes should improve by locating absent fathers and increasing child-father contact.