Child Support Services Recognized as Top Performer in California

Jeff Grissom, County DCSS director and Marie Girulat (right), County DCSS chief deputy director accept the award from Kathy Hrepich, interim director of the State DCSS. For the third time in four years, the County’s Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) has won both the “Most Improved” and “Top Overall Performance” awards among county child support services departments in the state.  

DCSS aims to establish and enforce orders for financial and medical support for children. The overarching goal is to increase child support payments to help families be self-sufficient.

The California Department of Child Support Services announced the 2012 awards at the California Child Support Directors Association meeting in Sacramento. San Diego County was in competition with other “very large” counties with a similar caseload size. DCSS ranked above Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside, in all federal performance measures.

Overall, San Diego County DCSS total collections went up by 2.5 percent this year to $182.4 million from $177.8 million the previous year. In the previous three years, San Diego County collections increased by nearly $7 million. In three years, the percentage of child support cases with a payment due within 60 days of the case opening increased from 8 percent to 43 percent.

“Obviously, we are extremely proud of this recognition. Our staff members are the ones that make this possible and it is great recognition for their efforts,” said Child Support Services Director Jeff Grissom. “Without their ingenuity and caring about what they do, we would not have made the progress and improvements this award recognizes.”

The state measures and monitors the performance of DCSS and other child support agencies on five federal performance measures, such as the percentage of cases in which the agency successfully establishes paternity or a child support order.  San Diego County improved in all five performance measures in 2012 compared to the year before.

Grissom said as a department they take a hard look every year at how they can continue to improve from the previous year.

 “It’s really a cumulative effect of some of the strategies we’ve employed over the last few years,” he said.

One of the biggest changes the department has implemented is taking a more focused look at case management, Grissom said. Before, the department operated in a functional model, each unit doing their part of the process and then passing it along to the next to do their part. Now every case is assigned to one caseworker so it becomes more personal for staff and there is satisfaction in the progress made in each case.

DCSS has also improved its customer service by developing newsletters, webinars and videos to educate the public about the child support process.