Nebraska Awards YoungWilliams Third Consecutive Full Service Child Support Contract

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services awarded YoungWilliams a third contract through 2012 to provide full child support services to families in Douglas County, Nebraska. This office, located in Omaha, serves the largest metropolitan area of the state and manages about 35,000 cases, representing approximately one-third of the State’s child support caseload.

One of the unique features of this office is its focus on collaboration and collocation. Due to its proximity to the Iowa border, an Iowa case manager is assigned to this office and shares space with her counterpart from Nebraska. Each case manager has access to the partnering State’s automated system as well as her own state’s automated system, and together they work cases shared by their respective states. This mutually beneficial arrangement has resulted in increased collections, substantially reduced paperwork, and truncated timeframes for interstate case referrals. Instead of completing extensive transmittal documents, cases are just put on the other state case manager’s desk!

The Omaha Office also works closely with “Fathers for a Lifetime,” a community organization supporting fatherhood by providing job training, education, parenting classes, and assistance for fathers. The Omaha project manager, Kelly Lamson, provides weekly seminars to help fathers learn more about the child support enforcement program. Additionally, a child support professional from the YoungWilliams Omaha project visits the fatherhood office twice a week and provides case specific information to men with child support cases. This “neutral ground” has encouraged many fathers who have previously avoided the system to inquire about their rights and responsibilities and to begin finding ways to meet their obligations.

Project Manager Kelly Lamson has ten years child support experience and three years as Douglas County Manager. She holds a J.D. from University of Nebraska in Lincoln and an undergraduate degree from Kansas University. Kelly also heads the Nebraska Child Support Enforcement Association as President this year. An innovative leader, Kelly is continually striving to find new ways to outreach to the community. “We are very excited about our close relationships with Iowa and Fathers for a Lifetime. Reaching out to strategic partners and community groups helps the Nebraska Child Support Program accomplish its mission: Improving the well-being of children by promoting financial and emotional responsibilities of parents.”

YoungWilliams has been providing services to Douglas County since 2001. In addition, YoungWilliams has operated the State’s Child Support Customer Service Call Center since 2004. The Call Center is located in Wausa, a small rural town in northeast Nebraska with a population of just over 600. This location was selected to fulfill the 2000 Nebraska Legislature’s mandate for location of the Call Center in a rural community to promote economic development. As a result, 30 new jobs were created. The Call Center currently averages about 28,000 incoming calls per month for Nebraska’s 105,000 cases.