Child Support Report

Vol. XXVII, No. 12, Dec 2005

Child Support Report is a publication of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, Division of Consumer Services. CSR is published for information purposes only. No official endorsement of any practice, publication, or individual by the Department of Health and Human Services or the Office of Child Support Enforcement is intended or should be inferred.

Channeling Help to Potentially Supportive Dads Customer Service Training Moves to Web Military Matters Launch of Three New Projects Helps FPLS Continue to Soar Oregon Hails Web Site's Growth Indiana Lauds Electronic Payment System Hoosier State Not Alone 'Save Our Children' Initiative Brings Home the Back-Owed Bucks

Channeling Help to Potentially Supportive Dads

By: George R. Williams

Children need the support of a father, financial and otherwise - a father who loves, guides, and helps the children to achieve their destiny. But fatherhood is not innate; men often don't even perceive a need for help in their role as father. This is why the Urban Father-Child Partnership, an initiative of the National Center for Fathering, strives to inspire, equip, and support men to be involved fathers, grandfathers, and father figures. With this support from our partnership, these involved fathers also tend to produce child support.

Based in Kansas City, the Urban Father-Child Partnership reaches out to fathers through three "channels for change" - school, social, and faith.

School Channels

One strategy to reach fathers is through their children's schools. We do this through three programs, all components of our Fathers in Education Project (funded by the U.S. Department of Education). Its goal is to establish programs in 100 schools throughout the Midwest.

WatchDOGS (Dads of Great Students) is focusing on the prevention of violence in schools by using the positive influence of fathers for an unobtrusive security presence and as a role model for children at the school.

READ to Kids (Reconnecting Education and Dads) is an elementary-school curriculum designed to improve father/father-figure involvement with their child's education through reading, partnering with the child's teacher, presence at the school, and practical fathering skills. In October, First Lady Laura Bush visited Kansas City to see this program first hand.

Coach DADS is a noncompetitive father involvement program that recruits, trains, and supports fathers/father-figures at home or at preschool/Head Start sites to coach their child's learning and development through play.

Social Channels

We reach out through the social channel because fathers in crisis often are ready for change and open to receiving help in other areas. This happens when a father is confined in a drug rehabilitation facility, incarcerated, standing before a judge for a child support order, or stuck in an unemployment line.

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee, we made the case for the inextricable link between the institutions of marriage and fatherhood, and how a man's passionate commitment to his child can move him closer to his child's mother and marriage. Training can spark that motivation by enhancing the relational skills and confidence that he needs to strengthen his connection to his child and his child's mother. And in the long term, as men are awakened to their fathering responsibilities, they are often drawn to marriage because of its benefits to them and their children.

Our core curriculum for our fathering work will be used in a Federal initiative in Washington, DC, to encourage healthy marriage, set to begin in January. "Quenching the Father Thirst" is a small-group curriculum that establishes a foundation for men by learning and acting on a child's needs, real manhood, stress management, family history, women relationships (including the child's mother), leadership, and breakthrough fathering skills to become responsible fathers/father figures.

Faith Channels

We recognize the significance of the faith community in the urban core, and we believe in the potential of fathers to change and also to produce change in their communities. Churches are an agent of change and can create change agents. For this outreach channel, we use the "Heart of Fathering" curriculum, a faith-based version of the "Quenching the Father Thirst" curriculum.

The Urban Father-Child Partnership is determined to continue to support fathers/father-figures in their involvement in children's lives.

Customer Service Training Moves to Web

As the first point of contact for the customer, the child support professional can create a positive or negative impression of the child support enforcement agency. Remember, to the customer, the child support professional is the agency. The child support worker is crucial to the program's overall success.

That's the message OCSE's Susan Greenblatt and Charlene Butler have been bringing to agencies across the country over the last several years with the Customer Service Training curriculum. Training sessions inBoston, Chicago, District of Columbia, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and several counties in California, including Los Angeles, have reached general and specialized child support enforcement caseworkers, supervisors, and state and local trainers. And feedback has shown positive results.

Now the training curriculum is available on the OCSE Web site. "Customer Service Training for Child Support Workers," developed under contract with the Center for the Support of Families, is a comprehensive entry level-type course with practical tools for workers who deal with customers by telephone or face-to-face. The interactive course uses small group discussions and role-playing, and helps participants learn skills to deal with even difficult customer service situations.

The curriculum consists of six modules, including concepts of high-quality customer service, verbal and nonverbal communication skills, and winning telephone techniques.

To view the curriculum, log onto www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/training/customer_service/trainer_guide/.

For more information, contact Charlene Butler at 202-401-5091 or cbutler@acf.hhs.gov, or Susan Greenblatt at 202-401-4849 or sgreenblatt@acf.hhs.gov.

Military Matters

Below is a list of active duty military paydays for the remainder of this fiscal year. These dates may be helpful for child support enforcement agencies with cases involving military noncustodial parents with payments out of DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Services) in Cleveland. For further information, contact Judge Larry R. Holtz, OCSE's military liaison, at 202-401-5376 or lholtz@acf.hhs.gov.

PAY PERIOD               PAYDAY
January                   Feb. 1
February                  March 1
March                     March 31
April                     May 1
May                       June 1
June                      June 30
July                      Aug. 1
August                    Sept. 1
September                 Sept. 29

Launch of Three New Projects Helps FPLS Continue to Soar

By: Wendy Gray

October's Child Support Report detailed an ongoing initiative to modernize the Federal Parent Locator Service. While the FPLS: Continuous Service Improvement is a major endeavor that will continue to unfold in the coming months, three new projects have the potential to help states improve their performance now.

One improvement will help case workers access financial data in interstate cases within seconds, not days or weeks. Known as QUICK - Query Interstate Cases for Kids - this pilot project will allow workers to initiate real-time requests for data from another state using their desktop PCs and the OCSE Network, the same secure network that supports the CSENet application.

States will be able to benefit from the QUICK pilot in several ways: by reducing the time to prepare and make requests for payment information to other states' Child Support Enforcement (CSE) agencies; by decreasing the number of case workers' follow-up requests for payment information because the information was not complete; and, because states have agreed to common definitions, once the state receives financial information from the other state CSE agency, a case worker should not need to make a follow-up contact to ensure their accurate interpretation of the data. States participating in the pilot are Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.

Another enhancement case workers can expect comes from a new collaboration between the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and the Department of Defense. At the suggestion of states, a data match will begin between Federal Case Registry (FCR) case participants and enrollees in the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) Defense Enrollment Eligibility System (DEERS) system. The DEERS system contains information about medical coverage for military members and their dependents. This DMDC match was piloted in Ohio and New York when OCSE sent about 2.2 million records from these two states to DMDC. The match returned significant results:

• 1,078 cases where either the custodial party (CP) or noncustodial parent (NCP) is enrolled in DEERS, but the children are not. These children could be referred for enrollment. This statistic will be higher in the production match. During the pilot, when DMDC did not have knowledge of the child, the NCP or CP was not included in the match.
• 9,000 exact matches, showing that the NCP and child were already covered. Of note, only about 20 percent of these matches were indicated in the states' systems, so this was valuable new information.
• 7,700 cases where the child was covered by a sponsor other than the CP or NCP. This usually meant the child was covered by a stepparent.

Because the pilot match yielded such positive results, beginning in December, all states will benefit from a proactive quarterly match. Case workers will receive information about health coverage much more quickly by sending a letter to DMDC. States should also save money by avoiding production of the National Medical Support Notice (NMSN) for military members. Producing the NMSN can cost states between $1 and $10 per notice.

Finally, also at the request of states, the FCR has been modified to allow states to request child benefit information from the Social Security Administration (SSA) through the normal locate request process. The state must be able to process SSA's State Verification and Exchange System (SVES) data. The locate response for the child includes the same information previously available for the adult in the case, including benefit amount, date of entitlement, payee identification, and address, and replaces the manual request for information previously sent to SSA. Many states have indicated that the SSA Title II benefits received by children may be used to calculate the noncustodial parent's obligation. States have reported success as they use SVES information to ensure families receive all of the SSA benefits to which they, and related children, may be entitled by directing custodial parties to apply for benefits for related children or to contact NCPs to encourage that children be added as beneficiaries.

Oregon Hails Web Site's Growth

By: Mike Bonner

Since coming online with contact information and a basic manuals-only Web site in 2000, Oregon's Child Support Program (CSP) has continually refined its Internet offerings. Currently, the CSP is providing customers with a wide array of user-friendly products.

Over 5,000 visitors per day are served by the Web site, and the most popular feature is access to case-specific status and payment information. Customers frequently visit the site to review the child support guidelines, learn about parenting time and school attendance issues, and even determine their own support obligations, using a convenient automated calculator. Parents, courts, attorneys, and agency personnel often turn to Oregon's Web site as a first resource for answers to child support questions that arise in domestic litigation. Other state agencies are using the site to obtain information on interstate cases.

After pioneering the site in 2000, the program added a training curriculum for child support staff in 2001, and the calculator later that year. Payment information and case status became available in 2003. Revised guidelines, a parenting time calculator, and school components were incorporated into the site in 2004. A new manager training curriculum was added in 2005.

Family law resource lists were updated recently to provide families with information regarding assistance for family law matters that are not provided by the CSP, including mediation and expedited parenting time enforcement.

The philosophy of the Oregon Department of Justice Division of Child Support has been to make the Web site interface a cutting-edge tool that ordinary citizens, as well professional practitioners, can use to get fast, accurate answers to their child support questions.

"The CSP Web site is a valuable resource for our staff," says Attorney General Hardy Myers. "It's an integral part of our ongoing goal to provide consistently high quality customer service." Compliments from users, too, have come in droves.

The Division is fulfilling its mission in our State not only through its active engagement in promoting the wellbeing of children and families, but also through the development and enhancement of 21st Century information technologies. Our highly regarded Web site is a critical part of that effort.

Indiana Lauds Electronic Payment System

By: Mary J. Francis

Everyone agrees that electronic payments are cheaper, faster, safer, and more accurate than payments sent by mail. The child support community is no different, and most states now are actively promoting electronic payments, both for collections and disbursement.

Because employers provide 70 percent of all child support collections, states encourage employers to remit those payments electronically. In fact, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, and Massachusetts have passed legislation requiring specific employers (of a certain size or remitting a certain number of payments) to remit electronically. States also can set up a Web-based payment service to attract the small- to medium-sized employer who otherwise would continue to remit by paper check.

The Indiana State Child Support Bureau implemented its Employer Online Payment System in September 2001. As of the end of November 2005, more than 3,000 employers were using the site. In November, some 83,500 child support payments were processed, totaling just under $10 million.

Since its inception, the Web site has processed almost 1.5 million child support payments, totaling more than $180 million. Because of this Web site and its outreach to work with employers establishing electronic payments, the State of Indiana has the second highest percent of received e-payments in the country.

Several factors contribute to this success. First, a legislative mandate passed in 2002 requires e-payments from those employers with more than 50 employees on staff and more than one child support payment due.

Another factor is the State's excellent employer outreach. Not only is the site free and completely secure, but it is easy for employers to use and has several features that they particularly appreciate. The site contains an automatic e-mail confirmation of any payment received. State staff add the entire initial load to the payment site and thus present the employer with a "ready to go" site within one-to-two days of receiving the employer's initial application.

Finally, customer service is great. Employers can send e-mails with questions or problems from the login page. These questions are forwarded to four staff members. A list of staff telephone numbers is also available on the site along with instructions on how to accomplish different tasks.

Legislation passed in May 2005 allows the Department of Child Services to assess a fine of $25 per payment per case to any employer not complying with the electronic funds transfer requirement. Several employers initially resistant to using the site soon admitted they love it.

Many Indiana employers not required to send payments electronically are using the payment site anyway. They appreciate knowing that, when they post a payment, it is processed automatically and doesn't get lost in the mail.

Hoosier State Not Alone

Twenty-two states and territories now offer some form of Web-based payment service for employers and/or noncustodial parents to remit their child support payments electronically: Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Los Angeles County, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

'Save Our Children' Initiative Brings Home the Back-Owed Bucks

By: Joseph McAtee and Special Agent Paul Doyle

In the last several months, the Project Save Our Children Task Force brought to justice several noncustodial parents who each owed thousands of dollars in back child support for their children in Virginia, Washington State, and Pennsylvania. The PSOC Task Force refers to cases such as these as "significant events."

Hoops Hero Drops the Ball

On October 28, a former basketball star at the University of Virginia (UVA) plead guilty to two counts (one misdemeanor, one felony) of failure to pay court-ordered child support.

As a condition of his plea, he is to pay the Virginia Division of Child Support Enforcement over $307,000, prior to his sentencing on Feb.1. This amount includes $17,000 in arrearage for one child, $288,000 in arrearage for the other, and the amount necessary to pay both obligations in full through the children's age of emancipation.

High-Profile Physician Can't Hide

A prominent doctor was arrested in New York, NY, his city of residence, on Nov. 23. After his preliminary appearance before the Federal Magistrate, he was ordered to return to Seattle, where his three minor children reside.

This father is a medical researcher and has made millions of dollars in the medical research field. He also is a collector of fine art. He has ignored his monthly support obligation of $5,300 since the start in October 1996.

Parents Reach Agreement in PA

On Dec. 21, 2004, a noncustodial father was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in Philadelphia for failure to pay a past-due child support obligation. The arrest took place at his Tampa, FL, residence. His arrearage, as of November 2004, totaled some $157,000. In this case, the noncustodial and the custodial parent had agreed, rather than proceed with litigation, that the arrears be retroactively reduced to $100,000. On Dec. 8, 2005, the father was sentenced to two years unsupervised probation and full restitution of the $100,000, which now has been paid.

What Is the PSOC Task Force?

The Project Save Our Children Task Force is a multi-agency law enforcement initiative that investigates and prosecutes the most egregious child support matters. Its members are investigative analysts from the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement; Special Agents from the HHS Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations; the United States Marshal's Service; United States Attorneys and their assistants from the Department of Justice; the DOJ Office of Probation and Parole; state and local partners in law enforcement; along with the IV-D child support agencies across the United States. These entities together identify, investigate, and prosecute noncustodial parents who knowingly fail to pay their support obligations and meet the criteria for Federal prosecution under 18 USC sec. 228 (Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act).

Child Support Report is a publication of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, Division of Consumer Services. CSR is published for information purposes only. No official endorsement of any practice, publication, or individual by the Department of Health and Human Services or the Office of Child Support Enforcement is intended or should be inferred. Internet: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/ Permission to reprint articles is granted Acknowledging CSR is appreciated

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