Pennsylvania

State Best Practice Book

Goal: Create a mechanism to share good ideas in a county-administered State so that local offices can benefit from the innovations developed by their counterparts. Everyone can benefit from the effective solutions developed to resolve common problems in the child support program.

Description: The Pennsylvania Best Practice book describes some of the best innovations developed in Pennsylvania over the past year. August 2001 saw the publication of the second edition. This latest edition described good ideas on a variety of topics. For example:

• Customer service
• Fatherhood/employment and training programs
• Court procedures
• Paternity establishment
• Interstate
• Case management
• Health care coverage for children

This publication is a collaborative effort of the Domestic Relations Association of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Child Support Enforcement and the Region III Office of the Administration for Children and Families.

Results: Pennsylvania child support managers use this book as a resource to address common problems. The practices are well received and often requested at national conferences. Pennsylvania Bureau of Child Support used the best practices as a starting point for the 2001 County Director's Meeting.

One Pennsylvania County Director described the benefits of the Best Practices Book. "As a small rural county, I have found that maintaining employment for a defendant can be a problem. I had heard of the larger counties having special employment opportunities with Goodwill or The Salvation Army and never thought it would work here. Then I had the opportunity to talk with counties about their CareerLink/Welfare-to-Work programs. I found that it was possible to find jobs for my chronic unemployable defendants. And, with the encouragement of the courts in providing defendants the option of either maintaining employment or going to jail, it has worked wonders."

Replication Advice: The biggest challenge is submissions. Counties are reluctant to step forward. You must convince local offices that they have developed effective innovations and that sharing good ideas benefits everyone. A way for a local office to think about their practice is: "If you were in a different office, would you benefit from this idea?" Every reader can learn something new from Pennsylvania Best Practices I and II.

The material is now available on the Domestic Relations Association of Pennsylvania (DRAP) website. In December 2001 alone, the best practice book had more than 100 hits. The Pennsylvania Best Practices Books can be accessed via the web at: http://www.d-r-a-p.org

Funding: The cost is minimal. A sufficient number of nicely bound copies can be created for less than $1,000.

Contacts:

Lisa A. Pozza

Secretary of the Domestic Relations Association of Pennsylvania

phone (814) 849-1688

e-mail: >LisaPozza@pacses.com

John Clark

Program Specialist Administration for Children and Families

phone (215) 861-4067

e-mail: jclark@acf.hhs.gov