Giving Hope and Support to America's Children

Scaling New Heights for Child Support

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Day 1, September 20, 2004

8:30 am - 10:00 am Opening Ceremonies - Dr. Wade F. Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, provides the keynote address for the conference. Dr. Sherri Z. Heller, Commissioner of the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, provides a thoughtful, specific data-driven map of how we will proceed to meet our commitments to children and families, with a special emphasis on the new National Child Support Enforcement Strategic Plan for FYs 2005 - 2009.

10:30 am - 12:00 pm Strategic Planning and Results: How Child Support Measures Up - Sound strategic plans include an organization's mission, vision, and guiding principles. An important exercise is the identification of partners and stakeholders. Find out how the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement worked with its partners and stakeholders to amend the National Child Support Enforcement Strategic Plan. Learn how State CSE agencies put strategic plans into practice and the importance of the national plan reaching all levels of the child support enforcement community, including the CSE caseworker.

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm Undistributed Collections: What Are the Challenges We Still Face? - Over the past few years, states have analyzed the causes of undistributed collections (UDC) and taken a number of actions to reduce them. This workshop explores the causes of UDC and offers solutions for reducing them. Presenters address the following questions: 1) which categories of UDC can best be reduced by automated systems; 2) should the whole function be automated or should there be some worker intervention; 3) what is the value of automating these functions or processes; and, 4) what actions require worker intervention and why?

3:30 pm - 5:00 pm The Tribal Child Support Program - Final Rule - Indian tribes and tribal organizations may apply for funding to operate a comprehensive child support enforcement program. The final regulations implementing section 455(f) of the Social Security Act were published in the Federal Register on March 30, 2004. This workshop provides an overview of the regulations and informs participants of its content.

Day 2, September 21, 2004

8:30am - 10:00am A Steady Flow of Child Support: How Upfront Case Management Prevents Downstream Problems - Managing the workday in a child support office can be like navigating whitewater. Visitors complain about delayed payments, lists overwhelm with daily work reminders, phones buzz with locate tips, letters ask for results on interstate cases, and more. Presenters describe effective practices that help guide frontline staff through the rapids.

1:45pm - 3:15pm Section 1115 Child Support Healthy Marriage Projects: Lessons Learned in Child Support/Healthy Marriage Projects - Site and state directors of Section 1115 Healthy Marriage Child Support Projects discuss unique features of their projects and lessons learned to date. Topics include: building community and faith-based coalitions; providing skills-based marriage education; integration of marriage and child support messages; recruiting from faith-based and community-based organizations; recruiting from child support, IV-A and Food Stamps and in-hospital paternity programs; building management information systems to measure child support and family well-being; and evaluation and technical assistance.

3:45pm - 5:15pm Using Your Automated System to Meet Performance Measures - Learn how to teach staff to maintain their automated system to ensure they are getting credit for all the work they are doing. Staff will learn how their work results in the maximizing of performance measures.

Day 3, September 22, 2004

8:30am - 10:00am Blazing New Trails in Interstate Communications - Hear about various interstate initiatives focused on improving access to consistent and accurate interstate case data. These initiatives are part of a Federal strategy to facilitate interstate case management and promote data standardization. The Colorado presenter discusses the objectives and results of a Special Improvement Project (SIP) grant to build an open source web site and share it with another state to enable access to case data. Learn about a technical design using XML and web services technology to enable electronic access to interstate payment information across state lines.

10:30am - 12:00pm Working with the Federal Government as an Employer - Hear from representatives of the United States Postal Service, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Defense, as well as the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement Employer Services team members, as they describe the challenges, obstacles and successes in carrying out their child support responsibilities. Learn how your questions and concerns help bring about real changes!

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