There is a variety of services that the Marion County Job & Family Services (MCJFS) office manages. The Collabor8 (C8) Virtual Call Center, which is a partnership between Carroll, Delaware, Holmes, Knox, Marion, Morrow, Sandusky, and Wood counties and the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services is one these services. MCJFS is the recipient of two national awards from the National Association of Counties (NACo)
including an Achievement Award, given for innovative programs that modernize county government and increase services to residents, and being named NACo’s “Best of Category in Human Services.” The work of MCJFS in developing and implementing a multi-county virtual platform to deliver public assistance benefits was the basis for national recognition.
The shared services effort also received a national award from the American Public Human Services Association for “Excellence in Human Services Technologies – Collaboration Across Boundaries, an implementation of county shared services, a modernization initiative.” The effort was a successful example of shared services and cooperation between governmental entities trying to do more with less.
Marion County Job & Family Services is part of the multi-county virtual call center that allows consumers from any participating county to apply for benefits or find out information about their application for benefits by calling a common toll-free number. Incoming calls are distributed via a unified call center solution among those participating counties, which combines the staff potential of multiple counties into a single entity that manages cases in real-time. All call center staff are trained to answer questions and help with the application process.
The multi-county virtual call center is called the Collabor8, or C8, and was initially started by the counties of Delaware, Hancock, Knox, Marion, Morrow, Sandusky, and Wood, along with the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services in late 2011.
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