Washington County Supervisor Tonia Ford (Left) is congratulated by County Director Yolanda Summerville (Right) on completing Case Manager Training.

Constance is the Legal Unit Director for the Child Support Enforcement Division of MDHS. Her unit is responsible for the centralized legal operations of the child support program. Specifically, this unit files liens against specific personal property of the non-custodial parent for the collection of child support arrearages. She is also the bankruptcy contact for child support in the state of MS, so she is tasked with representing the interests of MDHS in collecting child support arrearages through Chapter 13 bankruptcy plans.

Michael has been with MDHS for almost ten years. He works with an incredible team that deals with two major areas within Child Support Enforcement: Contract Monitoring and Policies. The Contract Monitoring team conducts quality assurance to ensure our vendor meets performance goals and complies with all federal, state, and agency guidelines. The Policy team ensures agency policy is aligned with all federal and state laws and pursues policy and system initiatives that improve how we provide services to families.

Ashleigh Quinn Beasley has been promoted to Deputy General Counsel and Privacy and Public Records Officer. In Ashleigh's new position, she protects the privacy of our clients and employees in compliance with Mississippi statutes and federal regulations while permitting the exchange of records required to fulfill the agency's administrative and program responsibilities. Notably, MDHS has the responsibility of disclosing public records in which the general public is entitled to pursuant to the Mississippi Public Records Act. Prior to Ashleigh's new position, Ashleigh was the Senior Attorney of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in which she ensured OIG's compliance with federal and state rules and regulations and agency policies when combating fraud, waste, and abuse in the publicly funded state-run human services programs.

LoAna McLaurin is an accomplished programmer with 27 years of experience with the state of Mississippi. She has worked at three different agencies and has been a valued resource at all of them. As the Lead Programmer for the Mississippi Enforcement and Tracking of Support System (METSS) LoAna mentored new staff and played an essential role in team meetings. Her leadership and work ethic was an inspiration to the METSS Team members.

We are delighted and disheartened to announce that John Townsend has retired. His last day was June 30th. John was a tremendous employee who managed the MIS Support Operations staff that supported the Child Protection Services IT hardware platform. His team later moved to the S. Lamar location to support the department's IT hardware needs. John's retirement is our loss but a well-deserved respite for him. We all wish John the very best.

After 34 years, we congratulate Sandra Hodges on her retirement and thank her for all the years she dedicated to MDHS. She held many positions with DHS during her time here, including working with Program Integrity, Child Support, and Economic Assistance Eligibility. We wish Sandra well as she enjoys her retirement with her friends, family, and four-legged children.