Child Support Report XXIV, No. 5, 20020501

A recent report published by the Urban Institute assesses the impact of four child support reforms on child support order establishment and collections. The four provisions, examined in "Child Support Reforms in PRWORA: Initial Impacts" by Elaine Sorensen and Helen Oliver, were all created or extended by the 1996 welfare reform law. Using data from the 1997 and 1999 National Survey of America's Families, the report finds that two of the reforms, new hire directories and improved paternity establishment procedures, have contributed to improved child support outcomes. Although the impact of the other two reforms - automated child support systems and license revocation laws - did not reach statistical significance, they too were positive. Low-and middle-income families headed by a never-married mother have been the ones to benefit from these reforms, offering some encouraging news for a group that has received little child support in the past.

In 1999, 17.9 million children lived with their mother while their father lived elsewhere. These children were about twice as likely to be poor than all children combined. Thirty percent of these children had a mother who had never married and, of these children, over half were poor.

The report finds that two of the reforms, new hire directories and improved paternity establishment procedures, have contributed to improved child support outcomes.

Between 1997 and 1999, the poverty rate among children with a nonresident father declined three percentage points, from 41% to 38%, a statistically significant decline. Among never-married mothers, poverty rates also declined significantly, from 59% to 54%.

On the other hand, children with a nonresident father did not experience significant improvements between 1997 and 1999 in the percent with an order, the percent receiving some child support under an order, or the percent receiving all ordered child support. However, children with a never-married mother and a family income under 300 percent of the poverty threshold gained significantly in each of these three measures. Still, only 41 percent of these children had a support order (a 5 percentage point increase), 56 percent received some ordered child support (a 10 percentage point increase), and 36 percent received all ordered child support (a 10 percentage point increase).

The percent of low-and middle-income children with a never-married mother who received the full amount of their child support order increased 11 percentage points in states that implemented new hire directories. This effect remained significant after controlling for other factors, thus suggesting that new hire directories have been effective at securing child support through wage withholding.

Children with a never-married mother and family income under 300 percent of poverty were significantly more likely to have a child support order in 1999 in states that increased their paternity establishment percentage. Although this percentage captures a range of specific policies, this result indicates that paternity establishment efforts are having the intended effects on their target population.

States that automated their child support systems experienced a 12 percentage point increase in the rate of child support receipt among children with a never-married mother under 300 percent of poverty. However, these gains disappeared when the authors controlled for other demographic characteristics. Similarly, license revocation policies were associated with a 7 percentage point increase for this population but did not stand up to statistical scrutiny.

Dr. Elaine Sorensen is Principle Research Associate, Urban Institute,and Helen Oliver is Research Associate, Urban Institute.

On March 21, 2002, Sue Bailey, Linda Olson, Theresa Olson and Anne-Marie Yeates led a discussion that covered a broad range of customer service issues. Chief among the issues discussed was why child support customers complain. Five major reasons were given: a feeling that they are not being heard, broken promises, rudeness, a "nothing can be done about it" attitude, and what can appear as an indifference to the customer's problem. The discussion took place on an NCSEA Tele-Talk.

A number of important values in customer service were highlighted during the discussion. Acceptance, defined as the ability to relate to the customer, was listed, along with tolerance, defined as treating people fairly. Other critical values on the list were: avoiding stereotypes, allowing the customer to participate in decision-making, ensuring that confidentiality will be maintained, and assuring that information gathered will not be used in an irresponsible manner.

Principles of effective communication were also addressed. Simple things like confirming what has been said, paraphrasing, sharing reflections, and making eye contact, were all held up as necessary components of any meaningful communication.

The presenters shared some "DOs" for handling difficult customers. To keep any exchange from escalating, professionalism should be maintained. This includes child support workers being aware of their own facial expressions, posture, and tone of voice. It also includes trying to remain empathetic and avoiding engaging in power struggles of any kind - knowing when to walk away.

In short, treat the customer as you would want to be treated, doing everything possible to understand the customer's concerns, and always be committed to providing excellent service. Try to remember, when being criticized, hard as it is, not to internalize the customer's frustration. Keep saying to your- self, "This is really not about me." And never be afraid to utter the simple phrase, "I made a mistake."

In short, treat the customer as you would want to be treated, doing everything possible to understand the customer's concerns, and always be committed to providing excellent service.

Sue Bailey is currently a consultant with wide-ranging child support experience in the State of Washington; Linda Olson is the Supervisor for Child Support in the Dakota County Collection Services Unit in Minnesota; Theresa Olson is the Supervisor for Child Support in the Dakota County Community Service Department in Minnesota; Anne-Marie Yeates is an Education Specialist with the New York State Division of Child Support Enforcement.

Michell Butler is a Program Information Resource Specialist in the Division of Consumer Services.

The "Texas Child Support Enforcement System (TXCSES)" was certified as meeting the automation requirements of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) on April 18. Texas is the 10th state to be PRWORA certified.

In the opening plenary of ERICSA's 39th Annual Training Conference and Exposition, meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, April 29, 2002, OCSE's Commissioner, Dr. Sherri Z. Heller, and Pauline Burton, Colorado IV-D Director and President of the National Council of Child Support Directors, shared the stage. The conference was billed as a "community meeting" designed to model the theme, "Unity in the Community: Coming Together for Families." Both Commissioner Heller and President Burton stressed the importance of combining our efforts in support of children and families.

Dr. Heller began by emphasizing the need to see child support as something more than just a check-off on a TANF eligibility form. Child support is more than that, the Commissioner said. Research has shown it to be an important source of income to families.

Commissioner Heller also emphasized her conviction that customer service must be front and center of all that we do, which, for her, means, "seeing things from the customer's point of view."

Looking at things from the customer's point of view, the Commissioner noted, might help us understand why - even with all of our successes - "the program is so widely perceived as failing our clients." With a 60 percent increase in collections over the past five years and the doubling of the number of cases with a collection, nearly 2/3 of our cases have orders and over 2/3 of our orders have collections. But if you do the math - 2/3 times 2/3 = 4/9 -- what this means, Commissioner Heller stated, from the customer's point of view, is that less than one-half of those who ask us for help get any.

Dr. Heller was quick to say that this does not mean we have failed. Quite the contrary. The child support program has made remarkable progress - virtually reinvented itself. What this seems to mean is that the customers are not yet fully getting the benefits of this "automation switch over" (like that which occurred with the public when the banking industry made its switch over), and we need to make sure that we are using, to the fullest extent possible, the automation tools available.

Other issues covered by Commissioner Heller were: our definition of "customer" must be expanded to include grandparents, step-parents, and the children themselves; collection and distribution are not the same thing; and we need to improve our performance in interstate cases.

President Pauline Burton, speaking from the states' perspective, began by listing what IV-D Directors are "worrying about." She listed such things as budget constraints, succession planning as retirements increase, staff turnovers and the need for training, evaluating automation enhancements, and getting all states certified.

She then moved to a discussion of "new directions" - where the child support program is headed. Under the heading of "who we serve," President Burton noted the increases in the non-TANF caseload. "What we do" - another topic - stressed such issues as moving from cost recovery to a program that seeks to assure financial support of children. "How we serve," her third topic, was about new technologies, interstate case processing, and more collaboration with other government programs and community organizations.

Participants spoke of the "community meeting" as having been just that: a time for frank and honest dialogue, broad audience participation, good questions asked and creative ideas shared. Commissioner Heller noted that the discussion indicated that people had been working hard on the issues that confront the child support community.

North Carolina's Office of Child Support Enforcement has a new web site called "eChildSupport."

When visiting the eChildSupport web site, the Automated Collections and Tracking System (ACTS) participant can obtain all the information available from the Customer Service Center's Voice Response Unit. The web site will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In order to obtain case information, participants must go through an on-line registration process to validate that they are ACTS participants. Once validated, individuals will be given user ID's and passwords. Case information that can be accessed by participants includes: case status, scheduled appointments, court hearings, noncustodial parent's payments received or custodial parent's payments disbursed, ordered support amounts, and arrears balances.

Participants may also request payment histories, payment coupons or authorizations for direct deposit.

Participants may also request payment histories, payment coupons or authorizations for direct deposit. Non IV-D participants will be limited to information about payments and must contact the clerk of court for other information.

Another feature that individuals can access is an on-line version of the Child Support Guidelines. This interactive feature will allow the user to plug in the information necessary to calculate and display the suggested monthly support obligation. Also included for the general public is contact and location information on local child support enforcement offices and Clerks of Court Offices, including a "map it" feature giving directions to the offices.

Child Support Enforcement customers who call the Voice Response Unit at the Customer Service Center receive a message about the availability of the new eChildSupport web site and the address. Plans are underway to develop a system to automatically distribute and store the numerous e-mail feedback requests received by the Central Office Client Service staff before further publicizing the site. Since the site went live March 1,2002, over 40,000 individuals have accessed it. More than 11,000 ACTS participants have registered to access their case information. Each day, an average of 1,026 users access the site.

Feedback has been positive. One user commented: "Just wanted to send a GOOD JOB e-mail to your organization. This web site is fantastic! I used to call the local office for child support information; then I called your 1-800 #, which was an improvement; and now you have this web site...which is a *huge* improvement. It is great to check this site rather than call your office or call my bank to check on direct deposit dates and amounts. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!"

Beth Amos is the Program Manager for System User Support for the North Carolina CSE Central Office System User Support Unit. (919) 212-4160.

West Virginia's 24/7 Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) has proven to be extremely popular. During calendar year 2001, over one million calls were received. Prior to implementation of the IVR, the Bureau's Customer Service Unit received approximately 25,000 to 30,000 calls per month.

The IVR allows customers to access information about the services provided by the State's Bureau of Child Support Enforcement (Bureau). In addition to service information, callers can also obtain the phone numbers of local Child Support Enforcement offices.

Customers who have cases with the Bureau can find specific payment information related to their cases by using their Social Security and Personal Identification Numbers.

For those customers who prefer to speak directly with a person, or who have case-specific questions, Customer Service representatives are available Monday through Friday during business hours. These representatives are also available for those persons who do not have touch-tone phones.

Options: callers can be connected to the Bureau's Employer Relations Unit and receive automated information about income withholdings and new hires. Payment information on the IVR is updated daily.

The IVR system enables the Bureau to provide better and more efficient service to its customers, who are non-custodial as well as custodial parents.

This project is the result of a great deal of effort on the part of the Bureau staff. The script and call flow were designed and tested by the staff. Due to the staff's inexperience in this area, the project took much longer than expected. Since the system was not designed to allow for the State staff to update, it has been necessary to work through the vendor when changes have occurred in law and policy.

The IVR system enables the Bureau to provide better and more efficient service to its customers, who are non-custodial as well as custodial parents.

For information, contact Sue Arthur Grimes, Director of Central Operations, Bureau for Child Support Enforcement, (304) 558-3780, sgrimes@wvdhhr.org.

In April, Office of Child Support Enforcement Commissioner Dr. Sherri Z. Heller convened the IV-D Directors of the largest states in San Antonio, Texas, for a dialogue on best methods to improve outcomes. In her opening remarks, Commissioner Heller emphasized the importance of making "operational issues" the focus of the meeting. In short, Dr, Heller said, "We need a work plan - something that says 'here's what we need to do and how we are going to do it.'"

The states invited were California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, which together accounted for nearly 60% of the child support distributed last year to America's children and families.

The focus of the "conversation" was on what can be done -- at the Federal and State levels -- to make a difference in the child support program.

The "working conversation" on improving the child support program covered a variety of interstate issues: enhanced use of Federal Parent Locator Service data, Financial Institution Data Matching, swifter distribution of collections, the special challenges facing large urban jurisdictions, the need for targeting non-paying cases for enforcement actions, improving customer services, the impact of employment and training, fatherhood, and family responsibility programs for non-custodial parents.

The focus was on what can be done - at the Federal and state levels - to make a difference in the child support program, that would result in increased collections, improved services, and the strengthening of families. A number of working groups were formed to address the recommendations developed at the meeting.

Joining the discussions were key interstate staff from the Big Ten states, OCSE national and regional staff, and Pauline Burton, the IV-D Director in Colorado and President of the National Council of Child Support Directors. The meeting also included a joint session with the Federal/State Interstate Reform Initiative group, underscoring the importance of interstate issues in program improvement.

Site visits to the Texas Customer Service Call Center, which also houses the state's Financial Institution Data Match operations, and to the Texas State Disbursement Unit were an integral part of the meeting, as was a real-time demonstration of the web-based customer service functions in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas and Virginia.

Helpful, also, was the sharing of some "best practices." Cynthia Bryant, IV-D Director of Texas, reported that under Texas law, medical support is included in all orders, and that through outreach efforts, aggressive data matching, and an effective public/private partnership, 200,000 kids were insured and significant cost savings realized. Margot Bean, New York IV-D Director, described plans to utilize PC-based Real-time Distance Learning Training for local district staff. Pauline Burton indicated that Colorado is promoting both Direct Deposit to its SDU and the use of Stored Value Cards for custodial parents. These were just a few of the ideas exchanged.

The Big Ten Initiative, with 11 state members (following the collegiate sports conference model), reflects an expansion of the Big 8 to include those states in the top nine rankings on either total distributed collections or total caseload for Federal fiscal years 2000 and 2001. These states are responsible for nearly 60% of the national caseload, and six of them distributed over $1 billion each in collections in FY02.

While these Big 10 states may account for a large share of both caseloads and collections, there was a clear recognition among all those who participated in the conversations in San Antonio that where the support of children is concerned, the best efforts of all states - regardless of size - are required.

Dan Fascione is Director of the Big 10 Initiative.

The Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE) and the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC), along with information systems staff from both agencies, have initiated a joint project to streamline existing unemployment intercept processes through automation.

Federal and State regulations allow DCSE to intercept a portion of unemployment insurance payments from parents who owe child support.

This process, which has existed since 1982, is currently carried out manually, with paper documents forwarded to VEC. VEC staff then enter the information into their automated system.

The goal of this joint project is to eliminate the paper and the data entry process, while ensuring that all potential collections are made on behalf of children who are owed child support. Reprinted from Virginia's, "The Support Report," March 2002