Who’s going where? This is a great opportunity to let us know who is promoting and or joining your organization. These are their new positions. Would you like to let us know who is moving and where? Send email to Stacy Gray to share in our next issue of OneVoice.   BUTTE COUNTY DCSS  Patsy Martinez  – Child Support Specialist II  Julie Freitas  – Retired (Child Support Specialist II)   DEL NORTE COUNTY DCSS Aaron Goodwin  – Director  Debbie Mayhue  – Retired (Director)   EL DORADO COUNTY DCSS  Suzette Lucich  – Retired  Marcia Patrick  – Retired IMPERIAL COUNTY DCSS    Liza Barraza  – Director  Bianca Legaspi  – Supervising Child Support Attorney KERN COUNTY…

By Ross Hutchings, CAE, Executive Director, CSDA Can you believe it has already been a year since being appointed as your Executive Director? Seems like yesterday when I attended my first Board and Membership Meeting in July 2016. I’m sure I drove those who sat next to me nuts as I kept asking what various things meant as they were being discussed. A year later I have a much better idea of some of what is done by LCSAs, however, I have a long way to go to learn all your acronyms! What a year it has been. One of the goals I mentioned in the interview process, and was supported…

Complimentary PowerPoint 2016 & Office Mix Webinar* Wednesday, September 20, 2017, (10 – 11 AM)   Contact your director or manager for approval and link to register.   Who should attend? Directors and team members responsible for training, education, documentation, and product support. Participants do not need access to a personal desktop or laptop computer to attend (group viewings OK). Note to directors: Please share this opportunity with your staff. Staff should have director or manager approval before attending. What you will learn? Learn to create engaging and interactive video content with PowerPoint and Office Mix. Office Mix is a FREE add-on set of tools for PowerPoint. Learn how easy it is to use Office Mix…

Conference Chair Barbi Brokhoff & Conference Co-Chair Julie Prado Another annual training conference is in the books and, WOW, was it an amazing success! The 2017 CSDA Annual Training Conference and Expo was held in Garden Grove, California, May 1-4 and was packed full of opportunities from beginning to end. We nearly broke our all-time attendance record having a grand total of 892 participants onsite during the week. We are pleased to report that all LCSAs were in attendance along with colleagues from the California Department of Child Support Services, Office of the Attorney General, Superior Court, District Attorney, staff from the Nevada State Child Support program, and Guam Child…

Vicki West, Director, Madera County DCSS I was born long ago on a dark and stormy night in Detroit, Michigan… not really, it was the middle of August so I doubt it was stormy, but I was born at around 9:00 pm so I guess it was dark at least! My father was an FBI special agent stationed in Detroit and my mother had been a secretary for the FBI when they met, but she stayed home after I was born. I was their first born so I got all the attention until my sisters (yes, plural, they were twins) entered the picture two and half years later. It was…

conversJill Francis, Director, Marin County DCSS Role Model My mom has been a great role model. She has an unstoppable drive. Never content with the status quo, she has reinvented herself and her occupation many times over. Her career has taken her from positions like the Executive Director of two different non-profit organizations to a Senior Project Manager for an international consulting firm. She showed me from a very early age how to take risks and to always go after what I want in life. At her core, there is a love for people. Like me, she is an only child. Missing that sibling connection has never really been an…

By Rena Burns, National Health & Human Services Industry Solutions Leader, IBM Child support professionals do far more than bring in needed funds for families living at poverty levels and offsetting CalWORKs program costs. You are addressing the issues of individuals to help increase their ability to make their payments, reconnect with their children, and to achieve the well-being we all strive for. A less understood issue is opioid addiction, from its earliest stages, often beginning with prescription painkillers, and for a growing number of individuals advancing through an aggressive network of illicit drug sellers. Opioid abuse is an epidemic beyond a scale I think most of us believe could…

By Mary Lawrence-Jones, Assistant Director, Sacramento County DCSS Sacramento County Department of Child Support Services (SCDCSS) sponsored its second annual Employee Enrichment Mini-Conference on April 17 & 18, 2017. The event was held at Sacramento DCSS and was titled “Adjusting Our Lens… Bringing it All Into Focus.”  The purpose of the Mini-Conference was to show appreciation for all the hard work done on a daily basis and to provide an opportunity for personal growth and development for Sacramento County child support professionals. To continue this development and to adapt to inevitable change, it is recognized that all need to grow and personally stretch. To help meet the challenges ahead, the…