A Look Inside OCSE - Story Series
Have you ever deliberated about an interstate case closure situation, or wondered about the alphabet soup of OCSE’s interstate tools? Have you ever pondered basic questions about the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), let alone advanced questions on topics like interstate modification? Are you unsure about the difference between interstate payment forwarding and UIFSA section 319 redirection? In terms of international cases, when you come across a case with a parent in a foreign country, do you know what forms to use, when to translate documents, and generally how to proceed? If you’ve ever been puzzled by these or other interstate or international case processing issues, OCSE has resources for you! Policy staff have held several multi-part training sessions to help state, local, and tribal child support professionals understand these often complicated cases.
Interstate training
From July 2018 to February 2019, OCSE rolled out six live, interactive webinars on interstate case processing topics ranging from basic principles to advanced payment processing scenarios. The OCSE Interstate Case Processing Training Series attracted audiences of up to 1,000 child support professionals who were eager to learn and gave the series high marks.
The series includes sessions on these topics:
- Introduction to interstate case processing principles (“Interstate 101”)
- In-depth explanation of interstate case processing principles (“Interstate 201”)
- Case scenarios
- Payment processing
- Case closure
- OCSE’s interstate tools and resources
The complete webinar series — including the recordings of the live webinars and the PowerPoint slides with presentation notes — is available on the OCSE Interstate Case Processing Training Materials webpage. State caseworkers can listen to the webinars or view the slides at their convenience, and trainers may convert and adapt the material for use in their states. The interactive format of many of the webinars invites participants to test their knowledge during the training through polling questions. The PowerPoint slides also offer resources for further research and references on each of the topics.
International case processing
The website also offers a series of training modules for International Case Processing Under UIFSA 2008. The staff developed and held this training in 2016-2017 to help state and local child support agencies understand new case processing procedures that began in January 2017 when the United States joined the multilateral Hague Child Support Convention. Under the Hague Convention, the U.S. has a reciprocal relationship with approximately three dozen countries and the list keeps growing.
The nine-module training series begins with an overview of the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention and continues with explanations of central authorities, incoming and outgoing applications, establishing orders and parentage, and order modifications. It wraps up with presentations on special topics such as currency conversion, and finally processing cases with countries that are not yet part of the Hague Convention (for example, Canadian provinces and territories).
These are just two of the trainings OCSE has provided to help child support professionals. On the OCSE Child Support Professionals webpage you can also find training on intergovernmental forms; state plans; and the Flexibility, Efficiency, and Modernization in Child Support Enforcement Programs final rule. We hope our state and local partners find the resources and training tools useful.
If you have questions about OCSE training, contact the Division of Policy and Training staff at ocse.dpt@acf.hhs.gov.
About the Author
Eliza Lowe is a member of the Division of Policy and Training at the Office of Child Support Enforcement. This article was originally published in the May-June 2019 Child Support Report (PDF).