“Step Right Up”… to the Summer Challenge in San Joaquin County

Each year, the San Joaquin County Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) engages in an agency wide summer campaign designed to bring staff together, promote awareness of performance goals, and develop new ideas and tactics to achieve those goals.Past summer campaigns include the 2014 Summer Surf Challenge that was designed to promote customer interaction via email and increase enrollment in eDocs. T he 2014 campaign resulted in the collection of 1629 new email addresses and 2380 new enrollments in eDocs.

The 2015 World Traveler summer campaign focused on the exploration of new territories for customer collaborations and achieving collection goals. The 2015 campaign not only tracked negotiated payments, but it also tracked the efforts made to create relationships with customers. During this challenge, 304 customers were contacted and 172 payments were negotiated.

The focus of the 2016 summer campaign is the Performance Management Plan –the theme is all fun and games! The Dazzling Carnival Summer Spectacular 2016 (DCSS ‘16) is designed to give each functional team an opportunity to have some fun while working toward performance goals. Teams display their projects keeping with the carnival theme, using clowns, games, rides and attractions. The halls and walls of the DCSS office are decorated with creative team campaigns in support of Performance Management Plan objectives and strategies. All program areas join the fun showing their creativity!

Case Initiation Team goal is to increase the number of new cases opened.

The Case Initiation Strength Tester Game, staff is striking high with all those who apply.

Establishment Team goal is right sized orders by encouraging stipulations.

The Stipulation Derby will set the pace; the one with the most stipulations will win the race.

Post Order Team goal is to increase collections through follow up on new order payment requests.

The Popcorn Popper just won’t stop, for every collection a kernel pops.

Grant Management Team focus is obtaining stipulations from grant participants.

Stippo the Clown will fly away soon, for every stipulation filed, he gets a balloon.

Intergovernmental Team wants to improve case management efficiency by imaging case files.

Breaking States Instead of Plates – imaging case files reduces paper piles.

Enforcement Teams focus is on the three C’s:   Collect-Correct-Close

Collect: The Strength Tester reveals – How strong are your collections skills?

Correct: Data the Clown puts a smile on our face, every time we correct a case.

Close: As the balloon popping game shows – performance improves as cases close.

Legal Teams will shorten the timeframe for legal actions by increasing stipulations and reducing continuances.

Stippy the Clown collects a buck each time a Stipulation agreement is struck.

As the Super Slide of Continuances will show, timely support orders will grow.

Specialized Enforcement Team will increase collections and decrease uncollectable arrears through COAP outreach and targeted COAP calls.

The COAP Miner rides are on track to increase collections and decrease uncollectable arrears.

Financial Team focus is to work on suspended collections and cashiers to ask for additional payments.

The Arrears Meter shows how the payment total grows.

Program Improvement Team expands education and outreach to employers by creating an online employer workshop.

The Employer Workshop Wheel goes around and around where employer information can be found.

Support Staff goal is to increase the amount of case actions processed.

The Strong Man is lifting a ton, to show how much document processing is done.

The 2016 summer campaign will run through September, which coincides with the end of the Federal Fiscal Year.   At the conclusion of the campaign, each team will tally up their accomplishments and showcase their results.

To cap off the campaign, the entire staff will join together “under the big top” for a carnival celebration filled with fun, food and focus on how the teams’ individual projects contributed to the achievement of agency performance goals. This year, San Joaquin County DCSS is on target to accomplish its goals set out in the 2016 Performance Management Plan and is projected to achieve four out of five Federal Performance Measure goals.