November is Native American Heritage Month, an annual time to celebrate the rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and history of Indigenous peoples. I’m so fortunate to be able to see vibrant tribal communities and their dedicated staff during site visits and tribal conferences. At OCSE, we work to uplift the great work of tribal child support programs. Earlier this year, we published our first ever tribal infographic, and we recently updated the infographic with FY21 data (PDF). We also spotlight tribal work in our Child Support Report, including the Nov. 2022 issue where you can read about Lac Courte Oreilles Child Support Program's Good Life Vision and White Earth Nation’s transition to electronic files.
Human-centered design projects
Another way we seek to better support tribal child support programs is through human-centered design. This approach gives us a new way to collaborate with tribal directors to identify problems and gain insight and input on the design, format, and delivery of potential solutions. We partnered with the University of Maryland Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to learn about human-centered design, and three teams interviewed tribal directors about their program needs and how we could help. The teams identified potential solutions to their challenges:
Improving the tribal plan management process
This team is working with tribal directors to identify a solution for an optional streamlined tribal IV-D plan and plan amendment process. They developed draft tribal IV-D plan pages through interviews, regional meetings, webinars, and collaboration with a joint OCSE/tribal director workgroup. The workgroup is hosting listening sessions to get additional feedback from tribal directors on the draft Action Transmittal that will provide instructions and examples for the optional streamlined tribal IV-D plan and plan amendment process.
Building tribal capacity and relationships through enhanced training, technical assistance, and support
This team is working to help tribal programs understand the 1115 grant application and management process. They discovered that tribal programs value relationships and desire more communication from OCSE and an increased presence at tribal events. Tribal programs also want Notice of Funding Opportunity flexibilities and an improved grant resources webpage. The team is finding and developing new resources for a webpage that will introduce visitors to our competitive grant funding: its history, application basics, and resources to apply for and manage grant projects. The team will seek input from tribal leaders and stakeholders about the webpage and plans to launch it in early 2023.
Increasing tribal input on OCSE-created outreach materials
This team established a communications workgroup to learn more about tribal communication preferences and get feedback on outreach materials that OCSE creates. Over the summer, the workgroup had a kickoff meeting where they chose a “Parent 101” one-pager as their first project. The workgroup decided the one-pager should highlight core services provided by tribal programs, a few tribal program flexibilities, a call-to-action for questions, and space for tribal logos and contact information. OCSE’s graphic designer created three mock-ups, and the workgroup offered feedback on the content and design. We'll be sharing the Parent 101 resource soon!
Visit our website for tribal agency resources and sign up for our Child Support Report newsletter for the latest human-centered design updates.
Tanguler Gray, Commissioner
This blog gives the commissioner a forum to communicate directly with child support professionals and other stakeholders about relevant topics. The Commissioner’s Voice is reprinted from the November 2022 Child Support Report newsletter.