Auto-dialer helps increase child support payments in Arizona.

In 2004, the National Training Conference in Washington offered a workshop titled "Harnessing Technology to Improve Child Support Services." At this workshop, North Carolina child support staff demonstrated that early case monitoring and intervention deters the nonpayment of child support. They presented their grant-funded pilot project to generate automated telephone reminders to custodial and noncustodial parents in several smaller counties. This proactive approach to enforcing child support orders was new and successful. When I returned to Arizona and shared that success story, we were determined to build similar proactive automation.

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Older Models

Child support business models at that time relied on powerful automated enforcement remedies that were triggered when noncustodial parents did not pay their court-ordered support. These automated enforcement remedies were largely responsive and were not triggered until significant arrearages had already accrued.

Newer business models focus on early intervention and building a culture of early and reliable court-order compliance. Following North Carolina's lead, the Arizona Department of Economic Security, Division of Child Support Enforcement, developed an automated outbound call-generation/dialing system to communicate with parents about child support payments and responsibilities early and consistently. This auto-dialer system generates prerecorded telephone reminder messages to custodial and noncustodial parents about their child support obligations and other important case activities. Arizona implemented this proactive auto-dialer system in September 2006 to assist with improving collections, increasing client contact and increasing participation in hearings and appointments.

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The Division of Child Support Enforcement leveraged its interactive voice response database when developing the auto-dialer application. This technology relies on information maintained in the Arizona Tracking and Location Automated System and downloaded weekly to the IVR database to generate automated telephone reminders (scripted messages developed by DCSE and the Arizona attorney general's office) to specific target groups. From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 48 of the 96 inbound IVR data ports are reversed and generate up to 2,500 reminder messages per hour to targeted custodial and noncustodial parents. A record of each completed call is maintained and updated to ATLAS. Automated calling campaigns were developed that target the following groups of custodial and noncustodial parents, who receive monthly reminder messages. They include

* Noncustodial parents with new child support orders or newly modified orders receive automated reminder messages about their child support obligation before their first payment is due or after a first payment is due or after a first payment is missed.

* Noncustodial parents with a history of consistent child support payments (six months) who miss a payment. This target group is prompted to contact the DCSE customer service team, which provides information about available DES employment services and informs them of their right to request a modification of their child support order.

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* Noncustodial parents who have not made a child support payment for at least 90 days are targeted to receive an automated reminder each month until a payment is received.

* Noncustodial and custodial parents with scheduled court hearings receive an automated reminder message two days prior to their scheduled hearing.

* Noncustodial and custodial parents who are scheduled to attend meetings with child support staff receive an automated reminder two days prior to their meeting.

Results

In the first 16 months of operation, 145,165 automated reminder messages were generated and $2,563,482 in child support collections were attributed to the auto-dialer application. At a cost of $95,000, it has provided a return of more than $25 for every dollar spent in development. In recognition of this new proactive automated enforcement application, DCSE was selected to receive the Commissioner's Award for Innovative Technology from the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement during a national child support conference in Washington, D.C., in October 2007.

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The auto-dialer will soon provide another payment option that should result in additional child support collections. As part of each reminder message, noncustodial parents will receive an option to press a number on their telephone keypad if they want to make a payment by credit or debit card or automated check. DCSE was expected to have this new payment option in place by Sept. 1, 2008.

This application has helped families in several different ways. It has encouraged financial self-sufficiency by providing children and families with regular and reliable child support payments, prevented the buildup of unpaid child support before large court-ordered arrearages accrue, and demonstrated that early case-monitoring and intervention deters the nonpayment of child support.

David Levin is the Policy and Resource administrator at the Arizona Division of Child Support Enforcement.