Ten Years and Counting – Child Support Services Celebrates

In the last 10 years, millions of dollars have been put into the hands of families with children struggling to make ends meet. How? The County Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) has helped collect and distribute support payments from noncustodial parents to their children.

DCSS became its own department 10 years ago, when it broke away from the District Attorney’s office. Now DCSS is marking the occasion and heralding its success with the “Celebration of a Decade.”

Let’s look at collections: In 2001, DCSS brought in $144.1 million for families. Fast-forward ten years and collections for fiscal year 2011 was $178 million. The significant jump came despite a number of hurdles, the economy being just one of them. The department also saw drops in funding, a reorganization of the department and a conversion to the statewide child support data system. Despite it all, employees soldiered through with an eye towards the end goal, making sure kids get support.

Customer service has always been a high priority and evidence of that is everywhere. During the last ten years, offices opened in Vista and Kearny Mesa, self serve information and payment kiosks went into operation, and parents can now go online to apply for services or make payments.

The departmental website underwent several makeovers with the most recent accomplishment debuting in April when the entire website became available in Spanish. So far, it’s logged more than 1500 visits to its Spanish language home page and has earned the 2011 Program Awareness Award from the Child Support Directors Association of California.

DCSS also won a 2011 Merit Award from the California State Association of Counties for its Educating Non-Custodial Parents video series. Viewers can catch it online and learn about the child support process before meeting with staff members. Staffers say it saves about 15 minutes per interview and the additional time allows them to focus on the specifics of individual cases rather than the general process.

DCSS has been recognized twice in the past three years as California’s Top Performing Very Large County by the State Department of Child Support Services.

Overall, these are no small accomplishments and we can only look forward to the next ten years of giving children the support they deserve.