Agency, partners win two Ohio best practice awards

Sept. 8, 2008 -- Two community partnerships won state recognition for the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services and two of its partners, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office.

The Ohio Child Support Enforcement Agency Directors’ Association will give two Best Practice Awards to the county at its  Fall Conference on Sept. 18. The county's Library Initiative and Sheriff Commissary Account Seizures Program won  two of 10 awards given by the association.

In the Library Initiative, Hamilton County JFS clients can drop off paperwork at 41 Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County branches. Library staff fax verification documents to the agency, saving clients time and money.

The Sheriff Commissary Account Seizures program helps increase collections on hard-to-enforce child support cases involving parents frequently in jail. The agency created a partnership with the Sheriff’s Department to seize assets from jail inmates’ commissary accounts. More than $17,000 has been collected.