New Jersey's POP - Paternity Opportunity Program - uses a variety of techniques to increase the rate of voluntary acknowledgments of paternity - especially at birthing facilities - and to facilitate the easy accessibility of paternity information and documentation to county workers. One feature of the program since it began in 1995 has been electronic imaging of the voluntary acknowledgment forms themselves.

Called Certificates of Parentage (COPs), the signed and notarized acknowledgment forms are scanned into an electronic format and are available online via personal computers to child support workers, to other workers within the Division of Family Development, and to the Department of Health. Child support workers can print copies of the documents on site when they are needed for court. (Hard copies are maintained by the state's contractor and can be made available quickly if ever required for evidentiary purposes.)

At hospitals and birthing centers, staff seek demographic information on all parents, both married and unmarried. Unmarried parents are offered the opportunity to voluntarily acknowledge paternity by signing the Certificate of Paternity. The rights and responsibilities flowing from such an acknowledgment are explained to these parents by hospital or birthing center staff. Under New Jersey law, the unmarried father's name cannot be placed on the birth certificate unless both parents sign the COP.

If the parents do not want to sign at the hospital, they are directed to Vital Statistics' Local Registrars or county child support offices to acknowledge at a later time. Offering the opportunity to acknowledge paternity at multiple times and locations makes the process more convenient for parents and increases the likelihood it will be used.

All information collected - on both married and unmarried parents - is stored on a database and matched against the Automated Child Support Enforcement System on a weekly basis. In some cases, fathers of newborns are also the fathers of other children with support orders. Information on married parents may be useful if the couple later separates.

Repeated training and outreach is provided to staff who come into contact with the voluntary acknowledgment process. These include staff of birthing facilities, Vital Statistics local registrars, pre-natal clinics, WIC programs, public nutritionists and breastfeeding counselors as well as county child support staff. By working with pre-natal clinics and by providing outreach via public service announcements, the program hopes to ensure that unmarried parents will have heard of the voluntary acknowledgment process before they arrive at the birthing facility and will have had time to decide whether they want to use it.

The percentage of children born to unmarried parents in New Jersey whose paternity is established through POP has increased from 70.3 percent during the first full year of the program's operation in 1996 to 76.2 percent during the first quarter of 1999. (Paternity was established by this means for 23,784 children in 1998.)

Statewide in New Jersey

Regular IV-D funds.

According to Francine Vitagliano, partnerships with Vital Statistics, Local Registrars, hospitals and health and social service providers serving pregnant women and young families have been vital to the success of the program.

Vital Statistics not only maintains all the state's birth records, but supervises local registrars. These local officials had established relationships with hospitals and birthing facilities in New Jersey and provided important linkages with those groups for POP.

Hospital and birthing center staff, who deal with the new parents directly, are best able to convey the importance of paternity establishment - at a time when both parents are flush with pride. Staff from pre-natal health and social service providers can educate young parents about paternity issues before hospital admission. POP has found that informed parents are more likely to sign a Certificate of Parentage at the time of birth.

It is also important, says Vitagliano to provide extensive support to make the program work. POP provides training and retraining, trouble-shooting visits to each hospital at least quarterly, technical assistance with problem cases, program brochures and videos, a translation service, and answers to legal questions. Monitoring of hospital performance by POP staff is also a critical element. Best practices from successful hospitals are shared with others. Performance improvement plans are developed with poorly performing hospitals.

The use of technology to maintain and reproduce images of the Certificates of Parentage and interface with the child support locate system saves worker time and makes the fullest use of the information gathered through the program.

Francine Vitagliano, Project Manager, Office of Child Support, Paternity Programs, PO Box 716, Trenton, NJ 08628, (609) 588-4540, fax 609-588-2354, e-mail fvitaglia@DHS.STATE.NJ.US