Tapping the expertise of specialized staff can help address domestic violence concerns. In response to the expanded roles and responsibilities for staff under PRWORA, IV-A and IV-D agencies can use three types of specialized staff to assist domestic violence victims. Specialized public assistance caseworkers can develop some expertise on domestic violence and devote the time needed to coordinating service delivery for victims. Child support staff stationed at welfare agencies can assist all public assistance recipients and provide special assistance to recipients with domestic violence issues by helping them pursue child support safely. External domestic violence experts located at public assistance agencies can offer caseworkers and clients access to people with extensive training and expertise in domestic violence issues.

Supporting local cross-training efforts can deepen understanding among agencies. Multiple local agencies may be interested in reciprocal staff training on their respective procedures and culture. Cross-training can be a powerful vehicle for alleviating the mistrust and knowledge gaps that exist among agencies and service providers, and for increasing staff knowledge of community services available to help clients. Agency administrators should foster this type of interaction by giving it appropriate priority. In addition, state funding for cross-training would support this effort. It would also demonstrate that interagency coordination is a priority of senior-level staff.

Tying information systems together can help protect client safety. To serve clients effectively, caseworkers from public assistance and child support agencies must be aware of each other’s actions. This is especially true when the client is a victim of domestic violence, because interagency miscommunication could cause clients’ personal information to be sent to their batterers. Coordinated electronic information systems can help to alleviate problems of miscommunication. The systems should (1) allow information entered into one agency’s management information system to be viewed by workers at other agencies, and (2) enable the information to be viewed by other parties soon after it is entered. The use of computer codes that are common to both agencies would increase understanding of the information. In addition, using a system in which messages immediately appear on the computer screen of the recipient helps to alert workers of cases that require special handling. Allowing for the manual disabling of certain automatic collection procedures also helps to protect further domestic violence victims’ safety.

State sponsorship of domestic violence providers’ participation in policy planning adds expertise to the process. Domestic violence service providers can make important contributions to policy discussions because of their vast knowledge of domestic violence issues and of the local communities in which they are located. However, these agencies may lack the funding to do so. Offering the modest funding needed to enable providers to participate promotes fuller collaboration by these agencies.

Local staff participation in planning or reviewing policies and procedures helps address operational concerns. The preceding approaches to encouraging interagency coordination are enhanced when policies and procedures are developed jointly by state and local staff, or reviewed by local staff once drafted. Committees that plan state policy usually include representatives of state-level agencies but may not include local-level staff. It is important to include the perspective of local-level staff because they can offer practical suggestions on how procedures can be implemented more smoothly. For instance, staff can make sure procedural language will be intelligible to other local staff and alert policymakers to potential implementation challenges.