Participants in the 2024 NCSEA U at Policy Forum program will benefit directly from NCSEA’s vision to advocate for and enhance professionalism in the child support workforce. Some of the topics to be addressed will be advocacy with stakeholders including developing policy initiatives and how to advocate for the initiatives.
You are eligible to apply if:
- You are interested in participating in a series of unique learning opportunities which focus on current trends in Child Support leadership and best practices initiatives that make a transformative impact on the IV-D program;
- You are a current or emerging leader in the child support community and play or hope to play, a role in shaping policy in your organization;
- You have requested approval from their supervisors to participate in the program, as well to travel to NCSEA U and Policy Forum 2024.
Applications are now closed.
Date TBA
1) Pre-Conference Get Acquainted Webinar
Participants will be asked to provide information about their child support experience and to identify some goals, innovations and projects they are involved in within their offices today. In addition, to begin understanding differences and similarities among the participants’ agencies, participants will be asked to describe how their programs are operated (state, county, or tribal). Finally, participants will be given a pre-conference assignment to interview one of their supervisors or mentors and to ask a list of questions about that person’s experience advocating or pushing a past initiative, as well and an overview of NCSEA Hill Tips.
Tuesday, January 30th, 2024 9:00a.m. – 5:00p.m. ET
2) NCSEA U Session 101 – Look who’s talking…
Advocacy has many faces: Whether we are the advocate or the recipient of advocacy efforts a different strategy is required. Key attributes for success are a clear understanding of the topic, the advocate role, the recipient role, effective listening and clear communication. There will be an opportunity to discuss advocacy experience as shared during the meet & greet.
3) NCSEA U Session 102 – Was there a memo on that?
Advocacy is always more effective with a plan. What is the message? Who is the audience? How will the message be relayed? Is the method different based upon the audience(s). How does our message fit in with a broader overall department agenda? All these questions and more will be discussed during this session.
4) NCSEA U Session 103 – Best in show…We’ll examine recent NCSEA PGR work and discuss message clarity, target audience, outreach channels, duration, measurement of effectiveness, and other factors that led to success. (Choose those that were successful).
5) NCSEA U Session 104 – Tips of the Trade
Working with the legislature is a key component to the success of the message of our program. Discussion of the legislative process and many effective delivery methods for the message. To the same end, working with media inquiries can also be stressful. Key strategies for creating media messages and responding to inquiries will be discussed.
*Other inclusions – Breakfast, lunch, and optional Cohort Dinner
Wednesday, January 31st, 2024 8:00am – 12:00pm ET
6) NCSEA U Hill Visit – 10:00am ET
*Other inclusions – Breakfast
Date TBD
7) NCSEA U Session 105 (Post-event, Online Session) – Can you hear me now?
How can we identify if our intended message was received in the way we hoped? What are some tools that we can utilize to measure? How can we avoid some pitfalls in our measurement efforts? Why do we even want to measure the effect of our intended message?
2024 Instructors
NCSEA is excited to welcome Margot Bean and Lisa Skenandore as the inaugural 2023 NCSEA U at Policy Forum instructors.
Margot Bean– Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Margot Bean is a Managing Director in Deloitte Consulting’s Human Services Transformation Practice, focusing on helping child support programs improve their outcomes by providing effective and efficient data driven customer-focused services. She helps child support programs develop human centered case management systems that streamline business processes, effectively analyze their caseloads, and allow case managers to execute case strategies based on customer needs.
Margot’s wide variety of government experience prior to joining Deloitte provides her with deep understanding and insight: Commissioner of the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, IV-D Director of the New York State Child Support program, IV-D Director of the Guam Child Support Program, and child support attorney.
A current member of the NCSEA Board of Directors, Margot co-chairs the Policy Forum Vendor Relations Committees and serves on the Policy and Government Relations Committee. An NCSEA Past President and Honorary Life Member, Margot is also a Past President and Honorary Board Member of the Eastern Regional Interstate Child Support Association (ERICSA) and serves as an advisor to the Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council (WICSEC).
Lisa Skenandore – VP of Business Development, SMI
Lisa Skenandore joined Systems and Methods Inc. as the Vice President of Business Development in January of 2016. Prior to joining SMI, Lisa spent twenty-five years with her tribe, the Oneida Nation, and most notably as the Child Support IV-D Director. She began her career in child support when her tribe received its start-up grant in 2005. During this tenure she began advocating for tribal child support and continues to do so today. Along with child support she has also led other human service programming in the areas of child welfare, domestic violence, prevention and foster care.
She is an NCSEA Past President and Honorary Life Member, and is also a Past President of the National Tribal Child Support Association and National Association of Tribal Child Support Directors. Lisa is currently President-Elect of the Eastern Regional Interstate Child Support Association (ERICSA) and serves as an advisor to the Western Intergovernmental Child Support Engagement Council (WICSEC).
