The Ocean County OEL is an initiative, which uses technology and community collaboration to coordinate the Human, Health, Employment Training and Social Services delivery system. The OEL Network will bridge systems and physical location issues in order to facilitate a coordinated service delivery system offering advanced communication, information sharing and case management functions. The network in Ocean County will be comprised of Federal, State and Local Government agencies, as well as public, private, and nonprofit agencies that provide human, health, social and employment services. Since it is best to provide services to individuals in their own community, OEL is being built county by county. Local collaboratives made up of local agencies are being formed to design, maintain, and manage their county network.
Ocean County is currently in the early stages of implementation.
OEL provides software for benefit screening, case management, calendars for scheduling, a document database, discussion groups, and secure e-mail. The State OEL provides counties with one-time seed funding to help with project planning, management, hardware, software, network administration, and user training. After that, each OEL collaborative is responsible for maintaining and funding their Network. A future funding plan will be established which will most likely include participating agency user fees. These fees have not yet been established as of yet.