Commissioner Tanguler Gray

For the past 16 months, I’ve visited with several tribal child support programs and learned a lot about their cultures, communities, and operations. I’ve also heard from many tribes about their program initiatives, successes, and challenges. This engagement has informed how I think we should support tribes through my 3Ps: People, Process, and Performance.

To expand this engagement, OCSE recently hosted its first Tribal Consultation in 15 years. Consultation is designed to build relationships and inform decision-making through open and meaningful discussion. I was honored to co-facilitate the consultation with Councilman Lee Spoonhunter from the Northern Arapaho Tribe. We led discussions and heard from tribal leaders and their designees on four important topics:

• Modification of the non-federal share of program expenditures: The requirement for tribes to provide the current non-federal share of program expenditures can limit growth, cause disruptions, and create instability. Modifying this requirement would remove a major barrier to administering a child support program. It would also ensure the opportunity for tribal families to receive child support services that reflect and affirm their cultures and traditions, promote parental responsibility, create financial stability, and lift tribal families out of poverty.
   
• Tribal legislative priorities: We heard from tribal leaders about legislative priorities for their communities.
   
• Additional regulatory changes, such as procedural and technical changes: Earlier this year, we gave a presentation to tribal child support directors about potential regulatory changes. At the consultation, we received input from tribal leaders and their designees about these possible regulatory changes. We noted that possible changes discussed during the consultation were only suggestions and would need to go through a separate Notice of Proposed Rulemaking process.
   
• Tribal systems: Tribal systems help in the processing of child support cases and are essential to a program’s performance. We gathered feedback on tribes’ visions for systems that can better serve their program and how OCSE can help.

It was valuable to hear directly from tribal leaders and directors and to continue strengthening our government-to-government relationship. OCSE will publish a final report for the consultation by June 20, 2023.

We welcome additional feedback, and tribes can submit written testimony until Saturday, May 6, 2023, to OCSE.Tribal@acf.hhs.gov.

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Bryan Tribble, Illinois IV-D Director

On July 1, 2017, Illinois transitioned from a child support guidelines model, based on a percentage of the paying parent’s income, to an income shares model. We made this transition to establish fair and equitable child support outcomes based on discernable facts and to ensure guidelines are flexible enough to meet the unique circumstances of each family in our state.

Like all states, we review our child support guidelines every four years to ensure they still meet the needs of Illinois families. Our most recent review was unique because it came on the heels of our new strategic plan with a freshly minted mission, vision, and values. Since the core of this strategic plan was to become more customer focused, we incorporated customers into our review. After all, the best way to ensure families’ needs are being met is to ask them.

Getting customer feedback

Starting in March 2019, we launched a workgroup to determine how to capture and lift our customers’ voice during our quadrennial review, while making sure they understood we’re here to help. In 2022, we collected feedback through 27 virtual town halls, more than 50 hours of virtual discussion, hundreds of live chat exchanges and live polling responses, and thousands of emails with our customers. Putting ourselves out there to this extent was scary, but we gained an unparalleled level of knowledge and lessons learned for our quadrennial review.

We also used this feedback for other projects:

• Launch a Family Resource Day: We launched a Family Resource Day for Child Support Awareness Month that brought together different resources that parents might need, including Child Care Assistance Program, medical providers, early childhood and Pre-K services, employers, etc. We plan to slowly increase the number of resource days over the next couple of years until they’re held in each of our 10 service regions.
• Create Educational Videos: We’re also publishing a series of YouTube videos to educate customers about all things child support, including enrolling for service, establishing parentage, modifying an order, and more.
• Embed Human-Centered Design: Human-Centered Design is a technique that puts end users at the center of your problem-solving process. Collecting customer feedback gave us the experience necessary to embed human-centered design into the foundation of our organizational culture. We’ll use this as we create our Community Child Support Advisory Council that will give Illinois families a formal voice in the policies and processes of our program and state laws.

We realize this is just the beginning, and our work is far from over. I like to say that incremental progress over time leads to transformative change. To accomplish this goal, we plan to engage with the families we serve regularly and routinely to ensure we—and the state of Illinois—are meeting their needs. We welcome the influence of families and their experiences on our policies and practices.

If you have questions about what we did or how we did it, please email me at bryan.tribble@illinois.gov. I’d love to help you replicate this process in your state.

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Wisconsin Child Support Program

In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic in February 2021, Tom, a United States veteran and resident of Wisconsin, found himself homeless, unemployed, and suffering from extreme poverty. Staying in different locations from one night to the next to survive the frigid Wisconsin winter, he was coping with symptoms consistent with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and was rendered unable to meet even his most basic needs.

In October 2021, Tom’s caseworkers realized his failure to pay his child support stemmed from inability rather than unwillingness, and they referred him to the local ELEVATE program for services. ELEVATE is Wisconsin’s five-year Section 1115 waiver noncustodial parent employment demonstration. Tom is a resident of one of five participating counties.

Through ELEVATE’s four core service areas, which include intensive case management services, enhanced child support services, employment services, and parenting and fatherhood services, many individuals facing similar circumstances have found hope and the tools to build a secure future.

As a part of the ELEVATE program’s intensive case management services, Tom’s case manager spent hours building a rapport with him as well as trust and mutual respect. Together, the two identified Tom’s goals and the barriers that prevented him from thriving. Tom’s case manager then referred him to mental health and other services to help him heal and address the barriers.

Tom’s caseworkers performed an expedited desk review of his child support order and suspended enforcement of his support obligations as he worked toward completing the ELEVATE program. An employment specialist helped Tom create a resume, improve his interviewing skills, and develop a strategy for conducting job searches.

Within a short time, Tom found employment and began earning a steady paycheck. However, keeping a job was a challenge. He struggled to perform and had difficulty envisioning long-term success. Soon, Tom was unemployed again and seeking work with the help of his case manager.

Taking a new and innovative approach, Tom’s case manager focused on helping him build a sustainable dream for his future by working to identify tasks he loved, using skills that made him feel competent. The case manager posed questions like, “What job in your life was your favorite?” and “What industry do you have the most experience working in?”

The two soon realized Tom loved woodworking and cabinet assembly and installation. Armed with this knowledge, they updated Tom’s resume to highlight his skill and experience in woodworking and mailed the updated resume to several local companies specializing in cabinetry.

Though none were hiring, one company was so impressed by Tom’s experience they interviewed him, and he was hired. He reported that he loves his new work and feels as though he is finally where he is meant to be.

In June 2022, the ELEVATE program connected Tom with a local veterans’ organization that helped him secure long-term housing. The program helped him with the required security deposit and first month’s rent, and provided proof of his steady employment and ability to pay rent long-term.

Tom is now consistently earning a living wage and making child support payments as he focuses on moving forward with the dream of building a future. He is using the tools he received through the ELEVATE program to achieve that dream.

Wisconsin is honored to be a place where individuals like Tom can find hope, healing, and a bright future for themselves and their children.

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OCSE issued recent guidance to help states and tribes develop and operate their child support programs according to federal laws and regulations:

• NPRM - Elimination of Tribal Non-Federal Share Requirement: Comments due June 20, 2023 (04/21/23)
• Tribal Direct Funding Request: 45 CFR 309 Plan (04/05/23)
• Hague Child Support Convention Forms — Expire March 31, 2026 (03/28/23)

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