FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Contact: Jane Norris
(202) 401-9215

ACF Awards $1.7 Million to Strengthen Child Support

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced over $1.7 million in grants to 14 state and non-profit organizations to advance the performance of the nation’s child support enforcement system.

“By testing and developing strategic improvements to our nation’s child support enforcement system, these grants will advance the well-being of children,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. “These projects will lead to greater stability in the home by ensuring that vulnerable children get financial and emotional support of both parents.”

Six grants are designed to improve delivery of child support services, agency and judicial responsiveness to customers and health care coverage for children in child support cases, including the following:

• Goodwill Industries of Pittsburgh received $200,000 to collaborate with the Allegheny County child support enforcement agency and the Allegheny Jail Collaborative to develop a service delivery model that targets incarcerated non-custodial parents for employment and support services.

• Episcopal Social Services of Wichita received $193,600 to test proactive interventions called “pro-se legal facilitation” and a customized system of child support arrears forgiveness.

• The Monterey County Department of Child Support Services in Salinas, California, received $200,000 to offer, in remote locations, child support services more responsive to the needs of migrant worker families.

• The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in Reno received $150,000 to develop tools to assist state court judges and quasi-judicial officers in setting realistic and enforceable child and medical support orders. The project is expected to reduce uncollectible debt and improve parental perception of judicial responsiveness.

• The Third Judicial Circuit Court in Detroit received $145,950 to establish support orders that more appropriately address the circumstances of both parents, improve service of process, use more culturally sensitive court processes and help overcome apprehensions about the court system.

• The Michigan Department of Community Health received $99,792 to use data matching of vital records, the child support order, private insurance available to either parent and Medicaid to ensure that all children involved in court ordered cases that require healthcare coverage have the best options available.

Five grants were awarded to non-profit organizations to improve child support and marriage education services for ethnic and culturally-diverse populations:

• Michigan State University received $98,364 to develop and test education approaches integrating healthy marriage content into Family Support and Education (FSE) programs for unmarried African American and Latino parents in two communities.

• The Alabama Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board, The Children’s Trust Fund, received $100,000 to provide marriage and child support education targeting African American and Latino non-married parents who are IV-D clients with a child age two or younger.

• Families Under Urban and Social Attack in Houston received $100,000 to provide African American custodial and non-custodial parents, age 18 and over with a minor child, marriage and child support education and support services to strengthen families.

• The South Baton Rouge Christian Children’s Foundation of Louisiana received $99,703 to provide access to healthy marriage and family strengthening services to an ethnically diverse population of prisoners and their families at pre-release and at re-entry.

• The Fathers’ Support Center in St. Louis received $100,000 to address essential personal responsibility and basic relationship and parenting skills to African American, Bosnian and Hispanic parents.

Three grants were awarded to states and non-profit organizations to improve local collaboration strategies between child support enforcement and community agencies:

• Georgia State University received $100,000 to facilitate a collaboration of partners to address issues of unmarried teen parents. The partnership consists of churches and faith-based organizations, representatives of the Administrative Office of the Courts, Juvenile Courts and Court support staff and associates in DeKalb and Fulton counties along with child support enforcement personnel.

• The Texas office of the attorney general received $100,000 to test strategies of collaborative interventions at two hospitals to promote the benefits of parental responsibility and the value of family stability and healthy marriage to the well-being of children.

• The Center for Policy Research in Denver received $100,000 to enhance collaboration between child support enforcement and child welfare agencies. This is a collaborative effort with the child support and foster care agencies in California, Minnesota, New Jersey and Wisconsin.

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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at www.hhs.gov/news

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Last Updated: Thursday, October 6, 2005