Submitted by: Ross Hutchings, CAE, CSDA of CA Executive Director What happens when you get 60+ child support professionals in one room for 2 ½ days? A lot of discussing, educating, thinking, disagreeing, pondering, ranting, explaining, cajoling, debating, inspecting, compromising, testing, and voting. We had all those actions at the 2016 Child Support Directors of CA Annual meeting in Riverside, CA. I had the privilege of being the facilitator for our annual business meeting, which we spent a majority of the time doing strategic planning. Our organization is based on our Core Values of Integrity, Collaborative, Progressive/Innovative, Commitment, Excellence, Unity, Courage, Respect, and Tolerance.  We will use these as our…

By Wendi Pomerance Brick, President & CEO, Customer Service Advantage, Inc. How would you feel at the end of the day, working in Child Support Services, if you saw abandoned calls in the call center? How about delays and backlogs in processing cases? What do those numbers really mean? I’ve seen people literally in tears when they see these statistics because they understand that each delay, each lost opportunity means someone who needs our help isn’t getting it. Families working with Child Support Services come at a time that can be stressful for them; a time of deep personal transitions and fear. Even when it is a voluntary interaction, just…

By Ross Hutchings, Executive Director, Child Support Directors Association CSDA is the professional organization for LCSA Directors. As with most volunteer organizations, you wind up getting more from your involvement than you put into it. However, we know that you are very busy and may not have much time to volunteer. We know there are a number of you who would like to get involved – at least a little. We have the perfect opportunity – join the ONE VOICE newsletter Editorial Board! Editorial Board is a fancy name for our group of Directors that help decide on articles and authors for each issue on ONE VOICE. We are looking…

By Marie Girulat, Director, San Bernardino County DCSS The State Department of Child Support Services was awarded the Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration Project Funding Opportunity from the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). The 5-year grant will examine whether incorporating procedural justice principles into child support business practices increases reliable child support payments. Some noncustodial parents (NCPs) often find the child support agency and its processes frustrating and difficult to navigate. That viewpoint can have a negative impact on compliance, which can lead to contempt proceedings for the NCP. The OCSE seeks to change the current misconceptions of child support and increase parents’ voluntary compliance with…

By Don Semon, Director, El Dorado County DCSS Have you ever tried to get three or four people to agree on something? How about 49 people? To complicate matters, these are 49 of the most passionate, caring, and opinionated people I know. It was November 2015 and these 49 people found themselves sequestered at the Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite, California, trying to determine the fate of California’s Child Support Directors Association. The biggest question in the room—would CSDA continue to exist at all? If so, what would our identity be going forward? We left that November meeting with a very strong consensus that not only would CSDA survive, we would…

By Norma Ramirez, Deputy Director, San Diego County DCSS During 2016, the San Diego Department of Child Support Services (SDDCSS) held three special court hearing calendars for customers who were facing driver license suspension based on their failure to pay support.  This project is part of SDDCSS’ ongoing family centered services efforts to increase family self-sufficiency.  The project was a collaborative effort between SDDCSS, the San Diego Superior Court, SAY San Diego Dads Corp, and the Vista Community Clinic Dads Club to provide certain non-custodial parents (NCP) the opportunity to address issues adversely affecting their child support case.  SDDCSS and the San Diego Superior Court worked together to facilitate court…

Getting to know Julie S. Paik, Director, County of San Luis Obispo Written by Carmac the Magnificent Answer: My Uncle Sam Question: Why are you an attorney? My Uncle Sam was an attorney and I always admired him and wanted to follow in his footsteps. As an adult, I learned he was the first person of Korean-American to pass the California bar exam.  His two friends and he drew straws on who would take it first and my uncle drew the short straw.  He practiced in many different areas and held many positions, include the Attorney General for the Territory of Guam.  Former federal OCSE commissioner Margot Bean remembers my…