Behavioral Strategies to Increase Engagement in Child Support

A person who comes into the child support office to accept service voluntarily is actively engaging in the child support process. In doing so, the person benefits from reduced fees, a greater voice in the legal process, and a better understanding of the way an order is established. The child support program benefits from increased…

Read More

The Limited Reach of the Child Support Enforcement System

This report examines the declining caseload in the national child support enforcement program in comparison to the population of child support-eligible families, which has remained unchanged over the past two decades. The report attributes most of the decline to the reduction in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) cases, which shrinks the pipeline of mandatory…

Read More

Healthy Babies — Healthy Relationships: A Project to Promote Financial and Medical Security for Children-Final Report

In the Healthy Babies—Healthy Relationships Project (HBHR), the Center for Policy Research (CPR) experimented with the delivery of information about paternity and child support to expectant and new parents in two settings that serve low-income and never-married parents: (1) Centering Pregnancy (Centering) Programs, which replace conventional, individual, prenatal care with a group centered model that…

Read More

Operation Access Evaluation Report

The State of Colorado received a three-year federal grant to improve child support services for military families. El Paso County was chosen as the pilot site due to its large military population on four installations.  This project, known as Operation Access, was designed to improve collaboration and communication between the local child support services office…

Read More

The Madrina Project

This is a report on the results of a federal Special Improvement Project (SIP) Grant for the Yakima, Washington Child Support Office to reach out to the Hispanic community and provide culturally relevant services.

Read More

Using the Internet to Provide Ethnic and Culturally Diverse Populations with High-Quality Child Support Information: The Case of Beehive

The Urban Institute partnered with the One Economy Corporation in applying for a special improvement project (SIP) grant from the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) to develop high-quality online child support information specifically developed for families in low-income and ethnic and culturally diverse communities. This grant was awarded and used to prepare three…

Read More