The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families wants to make its child support system easier to use.
Following Governor Tony Evers' recent proclamation that august is Child Support Awareness Month, the Department of Children and Families is promoting its new system known as THRIVE, it's designed to make the child support system easier for families.
Division Administrator Connie Chesnik said, "Modern technology like the ability to text information to them, to provide information on mobile apps, and just make it easier for them to keep track of their case information."
She says the current system is nearly 30 years old, and requires a lot of work-arounds in order to use. Workers say they've received several complaints about how inconvenient it is. It's not just families burdened by the old system, Chesnik says a new system is needed for case workers to able able to do their jobs easier.
Chesnik said, "Caseworkers were overwhelmed with working with an old system, which limits their time to work with the cases and the participants that they're working with, so we hope that this will free up more time to be able to work directly with those participants."
Currently, caseworkers spend more time than they should just to navigate the system. Now, they'll be able to help the families they serve easier. However, leaders say the system won't be up and running for another three years, so testing can be done.
Chesnik said, "They will now actually begin the development of the system itself. It will have to through user acceptance testing, but we will start piloting it in early 2027."
