Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services Demonstration Program (BICS)
BICS is a demonstration program exploring how to better understand individuals’ behavior and decision-making ability when it comes to child support. Known as behavioral economics, this approach uses insights from psychology and related fields to explain why and how people act. BICS is testing how behavioral economic strategies affect child support results by focusing on different areas, including early engagement and right-sizing orders.
Applying Behavioral Insights to Increase Collections
Initial findings demonstrate that low-cost, low-effort behavioral interventions can improve child support outcomes
Read Initial ReportKey Findings and Highlights From the BIAS Project
Site summaries detail the problem of interest at each agency, behavioral intervention(s) implemented, and findings from tests of interventions
Read Final ReportTop BICS Resources
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Dates and Deadlines: Behavioral Strategies to Increase Engagement in Child Support
Published: April 25, 2018Summarizes an intervention on voluntary service acceptance tested by the Georgia Division of Child Support Services -
Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services
Published: October 14, 2016BICS fact sheet #1 introduces the demonstration to test whether behavioral economics can improve child support results -
FY 2014 OCSE Grant Awards
Published: July 29, 2015FY 2014 award information for 1115 and Special Improvement Project Grants -
Using Behavioral Economics to Help Incarcerated Parents Apply for Child Support Order Modifications
Published: May 20, 2016Findings from a behavioral intervention designed to increase the number of applications for order modifications from incarcerated noncustodial parents -
Behavioral Interventions to Enhance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) Project
Published: May 20, 2016Results from the BIAS project on applying behavioral insights to issues related to design and implementation of social service programs and policies -
Funding Opportunity Announcement - Evaluation of BICS
Published: August 5, 2014Original funding opportunity announcement issued in 2014 for the Evaluation of Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services Grants
Last Reviewed: April 27, 2018