West Virginia

Interstate Paternity Acknowledgement Certification Transmission (IPACT)

Goal: To improve interstate case processing by providing an electronic method to quickly and efficiently access West Virginia birth indexes, make paternity determinations and request birth certificates.

Description: One of the most difficult tasks encountered by child support workers is to determine the type of action to initiate when the paternity status of the child is unknown. This becomes more difficult when the child's birth occurred in another state and the worker must attempt to track down a copy of the child's birth certificate.

The IPACT website was developed in cooperation with the WV Vital Registration Office

(WV VRO). IPACT is a secure website that allows authorized workers throughout the country to access the WV birth indexes, determine if the birth certificate is on file and request certified copies of the birth certificate, if needed. There are plans to add paternity affidavits and WV death indexes soon. Once a request is made, the worker receives a confirmation and the request is immediately received in the WV VRO.

IPACT offers a simplified method for determining the parentage of a child:

• On-Line Access to WV Birth Indexes - Enables the worker to view the birth indexes to determine if a father is listed on the child's birth certificate. This can assist the worker to determine whether or not to pursue a paternity or establishment action.
• Improved Turnaround Time for Requested Documents - The worker can choose to request up to five certified copies of a birth certificate from the website. The request immediately appears on the WV VRO's website screens and can be processed immediately (depending on the VRO workload). Since the child support worker knows the document is on file, they are assured their request has been received by the appropriate agency and the documents will be provided.
• Quarterly Invoices - Many vital registration offices will require a payment to be sent with the request for the birth certificate. It can be a very time-consuming and difficult process to have a check cut to send with each request. IPACT records all birth certificates requested and sent to the various State workers. The WV VRO can send an invoice to the appropriate State agency once per quarter for all requests sent.

The website is administered and maintained by the WV Bureau for Child Support Enforcement, WV Vital Registration Office, WV Department of Health and Human Resources Management Information Systems and WV Information Systems and

Communications.

Child support workers in other states, through cooperative agreements with those States, can access this information. They are assigned secure User ID's and passwords to enable access to the site. Each state must designate a database administrator who is responsible for obtaining and maintaining User ID's for workers in their respective States.

Results: The IPACT website is currently being piloted in three counties. By February 2002, expansion to the rest of the State is expected.

By April 2002, WV plans to begin the rollout to other states that are interested in entering into a cooperative agreement to access the website.

The pilot project has shown other benefits we can expect to receive once fully implemented.

• IV-A Referral Resolution - Workers have been able to resolve IV-A referrals that do not have complete information on the mother, father and child(ren)
• Data Reliability - Workers have been able to accurately code the child(ren) paternity status in our child support system
• Identifying Social Security numbers for all participants

Replication Advice: The key element to the success of this project is the cooperation we received from the WV VRO. We presented the concept showing the benefits to the child support workers as well as the benefits that support the mission of WV VRO. The State Registrar was involved as a valuable member of the project staff from the beginning.

The very confidential information involved is recognized. A high level of system security is of the essence. User ID and secure passwords are a must. Restrictions on the data that can be accessed must be in place. These were all issues discussed in detail during the design phase and decisions were made with the advice and approval of the WV VRO.

Funding: IPACT was funded through a Federal OCSE Special Improvement Project grant awarded to the WV BCSE for the design of the project. The project will be continued with regular IV-D funding.

Interested to Access IPACT?: If your state or county (if CSE program is funded through a local county) staff would like to be authorized to access IPACT, please contact Jim Dingeldine at 304-558-3582 or jimdingeldine@wvdhhr.org. Your state or county will be required to enter into a cooperative agreement with the WV BCSE.