Child Support Report XXIV, No. 2, 20020102

Involving faith-based and community organizations in the delivery of child support services is good practice: they have unique strengths that cannot be duplicated within traditional governmental organizations. The government needs faith-based and community organizations as partners.

Faith-based and community groups are trusted by and are in close contact with the local population served. And while much attention has been placed on grants and contracts, funding is not the whole story.

Community and faith-based groups can play a key role in providing networking and wrap-around services for child-support related issues, such as employment, counseling, and legal issues relating to custody and parenting time, as well as referrals for education, training, health concerns, and social or recreational activities for children and families.

In Fairfield County, Ohio, there are some exciting activities evolving from faith-based and community partnerships. The Fairfield County Child Support Enforcement Agency (CSEA) is part of a combined County Job and Family Services initiative. The agency holds an annual Information Night, a customer service event held outside of normal business hours.

This event provides an opportunity for customers and child support partners to obtain the latest information about child support topics and to participate in case management activities. Local churches cooperate by inserting flyers into bulletins and newsletters, as well as by sending representatives to the event to learn about the processes and services.

In addition, the CSEA sends representatives to ministerial association meetings to share information. Advertisements and flyers about community and faith-based counseling programs for recently divorced parents are regularly distributed and posted at the CSEA.

The local First United Methodist Church provides space for a new partnership with the Fairfield County Bar Association and the Southeastern Legal Aid Society. The partnership is known as the Legal Clinic, and it provides pro bono legal services.

The CSEA provides volunteer Intake personnel and makes referrals to the Clinic for private legal matters, such as those concerning the issues of custody and parenting time (or visitation), and in turn, the Clinic makes referrals to the CSEA in matters of child support. As a matter of fact, the Clinic serves as a first point of contact for many customers requiring various governmental or community services, and the partnerships allow for a more seamless delivery of services for those that need help the most.

In the Fairfield County community, the month of April is declared "Family Festival" month, in which community and government organizations combine to celebrate the family. More than twenty government, non-profit, business, and community organizations come together to provide fun and educational activities that emphasize the importance of families and children to the community. The local United Way of Fairfield County supports the Family Festival with advertising and promotional dollars.

The CSEA is now working on a partnership with the County Sheriff, local faith-based organizations, and community counseling services to provide an educational and outreach program to the incarcerated or non-compliant obligor. The idea is that counselors, ministers, and leaders in faith-based organizations can serve as role models for compliance and can help change behavior. The outreach and education program is in its infancy stages, with a pilot expected to be in place during the year 2002.

To accomplish the mission of the child support program, agencies must see the program from the point of view of the customer. Agencies must work hard to improve communication, cooperation, and collaboration within the community. Involving faith-based and community groups is part of a customer service philosophy that will help build and preserve trust, improve satisfaction in the government program, increase child support collections, and avoid payment delays.

Carri Brown is Director of the Child Support Enforcement agency in Fairfield County, Ohio.

"Child support enforcement is an important component of the federal and state effort to promote family self-sufficiency." ... President George W. Bush

"These legislative proposals will help move the program towards a focus on families." . . . . OCSE Commissioner Sherri Z. Heller

"These legislative proposals," said OCSE Commissioner Sherri Z. Heller, "will help move the program towards a focus on families and away from the historic purpose of recoupment of federal and state outlays for welfare. When combined with other income, child support collections passed through to TANF families can provide the boost needed for a family to attain self-sufficiency."

Findings from the November 2001 evaluation for Parents' Fair Share include increased employment rates and earnings for the most disadvantaged men, a more active role in parenting by some fathers, and increases in the payment of child support.

The Parents' Fair Share package of services led more men to pay support than they would have otherwise.

Parents' Fair Share grew out of the Family Support Act of 1988--legislation aimed at improving the economic status of children and parents receiving welfare. Parents' Fair Share was one of the first programs to target employment and training services to low-income noncustodial parents (the vast majority of whom are fathers), and it included a large-scale evaluation component.

The Family Support Act also included a provision to allow a group of states to offer employment and training service to low-income noncustodial parents. This provision sought to test whether the employment and training services that had been found to be effective for mothers receiving welfare might also help fathers.

Local child support agencies in each Parents' Fair Share site were asked to focus attention on cases with low-income, unemployed men. They also were asked to lower the fathers' child support orders while they participated in Parents' Fair Share, coordinate with service provides, and modify support orders when the fathers found employment or failed to comply with Parents' Fair Share requirements.

Many of the men were already quite involved in their children's lives, contrary to popular perception. Although most of the men expressed a strong commitment to their children, many were hindered in their efforts to be an effective parent, often because their own fathers had not been involved parents.

Father's Involvement

Some Parents' Fair Share fathers took a more active role in parenting, mainly those who had been the least likely to visit their children when the program began.

Child Support

The Parents' Fair Share package of services led more men to pay support than they would have otherwise. Bringing in low-income noncustodial fathers to assess their eligibility for Parents' Fair Share increased child support payments. For the fathers who were found eligible, Parents' Fair Share also increased child support payment rates.

Source: "The Challenge of Helping Low-Income Fathers Support Their Children: Final Lessons from Parents' Fair Share," by Cynthia Miller and Virginia Knox, November 2001, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. With permission.

On January 8, 2002, OCSE Commissioner Sherri Z. Heller toured Medical City Dallas Hospital, commending the hospital for its work with unmarried parents in seeking to have paternity acknowledged paternity at the time of a child's birth.

Voluntary acknowledgment of paternity, the first step in ensuring an unmarried father's involvement in his child's life, was obtained on 69 percent of the births to unmarried parents that occurred at the hospital between September 1, 2000 and August 31, 2001.

Acknowledgment of paternity establishes legal fatherhood, so that children are eligible for child support and benefits such as Social Security, veteran's survivor benefits, and health insurance.

Dr. Heller discussed with hospital staff how to go about asking the unwed parents if they were considering marriage at the time of parternity establishment. With 83 percent of unmarried parents romantically involved the time of the child's birth, and studies showing that kids do better when they are raised in homes where are two married parents, she said, "it would seem to be an ideal time bring up the subject of marriage."

Nationally, in FY 2000 1.6 million paternities were established. Of that total, 688,000 were voluntarily acknowledged at hospital sites.

Wage withholding for active duty military is prepared and mailed on the first of the month after the month from which the money is garnished. The military pay system is programmed so that when a payday falls on a weekend or holiday, checks are mailed on the last business day before the holiday or weekend. Below is a listing of the Defense Joint Military Pay System end-of-month paydays for January through December 2002, together with the child support payments.

In Minnesota child support offices routinely include noncustodial fathers in their outreach. Reaching out to these fathers who are in jail or prison, however, is an effort that State and county staff are undertaking. Child support materials are provided to incarcerated parents at intake interviews early in their sentences. Inmates receive the parent handbook, a sample modification request letter and tips for navigate the system hand staying connected to their children.

Virginia's Child Support Enforcement Program, which services 558,000 children, now has in interactive Web application to give customers fast and accurate information about their child support cases. The Web application is statewide and monitored centrally by child support and communications staff in the headquarters office in Richmond. It provides customers with the last six payments made, as well as selected case information, such as court dates and enforcement actions.

Governor Bill Janklow has unveiled South Dakota's latest child support poster, featuring four of the State's most evasive child support offenders. The posters are issued by the Department of Social Services, and this year's poster features three men and one woman who owe, in total, move that $125,000 in back support to their children.

"The posters send a strong message to others that may think they can get away with not supporting their children," said Governor Janklow.

Since the start of the campaign in 1995, South Dakota's Office of Child Support Enforcement, has collected more than $22l,000 from 35 of the 50 parents featured on the posters.

Sometimes the true value of automation gets forgotten amid its speed and efficiency. In the Child Support Enforcement Program, federal automation projects have revolutionized local governments' whole way of doing business.

In Pennsylvania, for example, "Sylvia" and her 13-year old daughter received welfare. Unfortunately, a wage attachment couldn't be used to collect child support from the non-custodial father, because he was self-employed. He neither paid child support regularly nor in full.

Federal automation projects have revolutionized local governments' whole way of doing business.

Over time, because of his sporadic payments, outstanding child support payments grew to $9,000. The father made payments of $2 a week toward the back support, telling the judge that was the best he could do. But with the advent of the Financial Institution Data Match (FIDM) program, the county child support agency located about $9,000 of his assets and seized them to pay off the entire amount of back support owed.

In another Pennsylvania case, the National Directory of New Hires was used to identify the new employment of an absent parent who had not paid any support since 1983. The parent skipped out on his new employment immediately, but the employer gave the local child support agency his forwarding address. Now, he pays $100 in support every two weeks.

From the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003

The Office of Child Support Enforcement's (OCSE) National Training Center (NTC) now has available a Virtual Training Library. The library is located at URL: /programs/cse/prgrpt.htm .

The Library consists of curricula that can be downloaded and printed out. Included are trainer and participant guides, PowerPoint presentations, and handouts. In short, the Virtual Training Library has everything a trainer needs to get a course delivery up and running.

Courses include: Customer Service, Training of Trainers (TOT), Step by Step Child Support for Employers, FIDM, Management Development Training for IV-D Directors and Executive Staff, and PRWORA's Child Support Distribution Requirements.

"Converting the computer based training courses to Web Based Training makes them more readily available to our state and local training partners." . . . . .Michelle Jefferson

There is also a section on Web Based Training that includes courses on: Child Support Enforcement Orientation, Locate, Paternity Establishment, Enforcing the Order, Interstate Case Processing/UIFSA, and Distribution.

Michelle Jefferson, Director of OCSE's Division of State, Local, and Tribal Assistance says, "Converting the computer based training courses to Web Based Training makes them more readily available to our state and local training partners." Adds National Training Center Chief Yvette Hilderson Riddick, "We're very interested in your reaction to these courses. Please let us know how you like them."

The Virtual Training Library also features "Who's Training Who," a schedule of federal, state, and local conferences. This section of the Library also has a schedule of NTC training deliverables.

New courses will be added as they are developed. To access the Library go to OCSE's Home Page and click on the Virtual Training Library icon. If you have comments on the courses, or would like further information, about then, contact OCSE's Charlene Butler at (202) 401-5091.

The Safe and Stable Families Initiative was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2001,. The legislation expands services to strengthen families, creates and expands mentoring programs for children whose parents are in prison, and enhances educational opportunities for children leaving foster care.

The bill also authorizes . . . $67 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 for projects that mentor children of prisoners.

Specifically, the bill reauthorizes and substantially expands the resources available to states and Indian Tribes to strengthen families at risk and ensure the safety and permanency of placements of vulnerable children through the "Promoting Safe and Stable Families" program. This program is funded at $505 million a year, an historic increase in spending of $200 million annually. And--important for child support enforcement--the legislation allows these funds to be used for services that strengthen parental relationships and promote healthy marriages.

The bill also authorizes an initial $67 million in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 for projects that mentor children of prisoners (an estimated 1.5 million children have a parent in prison), and an additional $60 million of annual funding to states for education and training vouchers for youth between the ages of 16 and 21.

Many people in the child support program caseload could benefit by becoming more aware of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Changes for year 2001 make the EITC worth more money to low and moderate income employees than ever before--up to $4,008 for some families.

Workers who were raising one child in their home and had family income of less than $28,281 in 2001 can get an EITC of up to $2,428. Workers who were raising more than one child in their home and had family income of less than $32,121 in 2001 can get an EITC of up $4,008.

Workers who were not raising children in their home but were between ages 25 and 64 on December 31, 2001, and had income below $10,710 can get an EITC benefit of up to $364. In addition, grandparents who work and are raising grandchildren may qualify for the EITC.

For more information, contact Paul Maiers in ACF's Office of Family Assistance at (202) 401-5438.