December 2024 Child Support Report
COMMISSIONER'S VOICE: Important Advancements for the National Child Support Program
Commissioner Tanguler Gray
When I joined OCSS as commissioner in 2021, I was honored to continue my lifelong work of emphasizing engagement and leading through my 3Ps: People, Process, and Performance. Well, three years have flown by, and it’s amazing how much we’ve been able to accomplish together! While I can’t note every success, I do want to highlight some significant child support accomplishments during the Biden-Harris Administration.
Name Change and Whole Family Strategies
In 2023, we changed the name of the Office of Child Support Enforcement to Office of Child Support Services, reflecting our program’s commitment to serve and support the whole family. This change emphasizes the national program’s evolution, innovation, modernization, and recognition of the needs of today’s families. OCSS also developed an action plan for advancing inclusive, whole family strategies in child support services. Our process for developing the plan was presented to ACF senior staff as a model to replicate in other program offices.
Rules and Regulations
We supported ACF’s robust regulatory agenda by publishing federal rules that provide a framework under which state and tribal child support programs operate. Here are some significant rules from this term that help programs and the families they serve:
- Removing burdens to support the growth of tribal child support programs: ACF published a rule that supports the growth of the tribal child support program by eliminating burdensome costs. As of Oct. 1, 2024, the federal government fully funds new and existing tribal child support programs. This rule supports tribes and tribal organizations that wish to operate a child support program consistent with their history, values, and cultures.
- Helping child support agencies get through emergencies: ACF published a rule to provide targeted and time-limited relief to states from certain child support program performance penalties when natural disasters and other calamities impact operations and prevent a state from achieving its required performance measures. This helps programs continue to support the very families most in need of public assistance during a crisis.
- Connecting noncustodial parents to employment resources: ACF published a rule that gives child support programs flexibility to use federal funding to provide employment and training services such as skills assessments, occupational training, job placement, and work supports, including transportation assistance. This would help parents who have difficulty paying child support, while also improving the likelihood of collecting payments that promote family and child well-being.
Grants
During the Biden-Harris Administration, we offered grant opportunities to state and tribal child support programs for research and child support program improvements:
- Support domestic violence survivors: The Safe Access for Victims’ Economic Security demonstration creates practical, replicable process and program improvements to ensure survivors receive the financial support they’re due and reduce the likelihood that perpetrators can use the child support system to continue their abuse.
- Promote equity: The Advancing Equity in Child Support demonstration aims to assess inequities within the child support program and address disproportional access to services.
- Help parents find jobs: The Next Generation Child Support Employment Services demonstration expands and enhances child support-led employment services for noncustodial parents to help them get jobs and increase reliable payments for their children.
International Efforts
We work with states and countries to help families seeking support when parents live in different countries. Here are some big accomplishments we made this term for international families:
- Making international payments more efficient: We launched the Central Authority Payment (CAP) service that sends international child support payments from states to foreign authorities through a centralized process. It streamlines international payments, reduces costs, and ensures families receive more money. As of Nov. 2024, CAP sent over $5 million in outgoing international payments from 44 states to five countries. We’re working to expand CAP enrollment to other countries and accept incoming payments. A big thank you to the HHS Program Support Center and the Department of Treasury’s International Treasury Services for helping us get payments to our foreign partners, and to Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Hawaii, Washington, and New Jersey for their help piloting payments to other countries.
- Translating international forms for programs: We launched iForms, a new Portal application that can help state child support programs save time, money, and effort by generating Hague Child Support Convention forms in multiple languages to send to foreign partners. This promotes child well-being around the world.
Fatherhood
In support of ACF’s commitment to helping fathers, we published Services for Fathers and Families (in English and Spanish), a handout that connects fathers and their families to help with child support, employment, housing, health insurance, and more. The project was a collaboration with the Office of Family Assistance and the Office of Administration that also produced a handout for fathers with information on parenting tips (PDF) to help fathers be the best they can be. These handouts were the first in a series of similar materials from ACF program offices.
Policy Documents
We provide guidance and training to help states and tribes develop and operate their individual programs according to federal laws and regulations. Here are a couple of major policy documents we issued this term:
- Supporting family reunification: OCSS wrote a joint letter with the Children’s Bureau that highlighted new guidance about removing financial barriers to help reunify families in the child welfare program. The Children’s Bureau policy notes IV-E programs must thoroughly review cases and be confident that a referral to the child support program will not interfere with reunification.
- Encouraging debt relief to help parents meet child support obligations: We published an Information Memorandum that gave agencies information about the benefits of compromising child support debt and encouraging them to consider debt compromise programs as ways to best serve customers.
- Sharing best practices for system modernization: We collaborated with the ACF Office of the Chief Technology Officer and issued system modernization guidance to minimize risk of challenges, ensure compliance with federal requirements, and encourage technology that enables the child support community to effectively support responsible parenting, family self-sufficiency, and child well-being.
- Encouraging close examination of SNAP referrals to support families: We worked closely with the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) on updating their policy guidance for states around mandatory SNAP referrals to the child support program. FNS encouraged states to evaluate the impacts on vulnerable individuals’ access to nutrition assistance, especially children, and determine if these referrals best meet the needs of participants. It cited a recent FNS study that showed little evidence that implementing referrals to child support increased child support cooperation or improved family outcomes.
I want to thank our child support professionals and partners nationwide who have collaborated with us to accomplish these important changes. I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished this term. My chapter at ACF ends Jan. 20, but I know you’ll continue to move the program forward. Wishing you all the best in 2025!
COMMISSIONER'S VOICE: Helping Parents Meet Their Child Support Obligations
Commissioner Tanguler Gray
We know that children have the best chance for success when they receive emotional and financial support from both parents. ACF has worked hard to deliver services that lift up parents so they can provide this critical support for their families. Recently, OCSS published a rule that would build on these efforts and make it easier for state and tribal child support programs to offer employment and training services to unemployed and underemployed parents.
Research indicates that a noncustodial parent’s employment status directly correlates to reliability of child support payments. Providing employment and training services to parents with child support obligations who may be unemployed or underemployed has proven to help these parents and, in turn, their children. These types of national and state-based programs can result in increased employment rates, earnings, and amount and regularity of child support payments.
The Employment and Training Services for Noncustodial Parents in the Child Support Program final rule aligns with our commitment to whole-family strategies and to increase financial stability and economic mobility for families. It will give state and tribal child support programs the flexibility to use federal funding to provide services such as skills assessments, job search assistance, job readiness training, occupational training, job placement, and work supports, including transportation assistance. These services can help parents struggling to pay child support find a job that can help them make regular payments.
Many child support programs work to increase parent participation in the workforce, improve compliance with child support orders, and provide families with a path to economic stability. This rule will support those current efforts and make it easier for other programs to launch child support-led employment and training efforts.
Child support programs interested in starting an employment and training program can visit the OCSS website to access the Knowledge Works and Tribal Employment Pathways resources. These resources have planning tools, sample forms and templates, training videos, and more.
I’m so proud that we were able to get this important rule published. Thank you to my hardworking OCSS colleagues and child support partners nationwide for your perseverance, thoughtful feedback, and commitment to promoting child well-being by serving the whole family.
Section 1115 Grant and Waiver Resources
Donna Steele, Division of Program Innovation, OCSS
Are you a state or tribal child support agency interested in applying for an OCSS grant? Do you already have a grant and need guidance on how to manage it? Do you know how to apply for a waiver instead of a grant? OCSS has resources to help you implement projects to help families in the child support caseload.
1115 Grants
The Apply and Manage webpage on the OCSS website has information to help you apply for, manage, and close out a grant. Developed through a Human-Centered Design approach, this page incorporates feedback from our grant recipients about what they need to effectively navigate the grant process.
Since launching the page, we’ve received positive feedback. One grant recipient wrote:
Wow, this is a great resource! I love how all the forms are in one place, and the details on creating a logic model are incredibly helpful…Great resources for both newcomers to grants and those with experience. Thank you for bringing this to my attention; it will definitely be useful for us!
1115 Waivers
OCSS recently launched a dedicated webpage for Section 1115 waivers. OCSS can waive certain program requirements or funding restrictions for child support agencies, allowing them to implement time-limited initiatives that enhance children’s financial well-being. We share comprehensive information about the purpose of Section 1115 waivers, how they’re funded, the application and evaluation process, and technical assistance available. The webpage also provides tools for assessing, designing, and developing pilot programs, along with examples of successful applications to help you get started.
If there are other resources about grants and waivers that you would like to have, email us at ocss.dpi@acf.hhs.gov.
Custodial Parents’ Experience with the Child Support Program
Elaine Sorensen, OPRE
The Analyze This data blog provides in-depth analysis of child support data to inform child support professionals and other partners about national child support trends. You can read past blogs and sign up for our list by visiting the Analyze This webpage.
This is the second blog that analyzes data from the 2023 Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (CPS-CSS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau roughly every two years. The survey generates a nationally representative sample of custodial parents with children under 21 in the home.
The 2023 CPS-CSS added several new questions for custodial parents about their experience working with the child support program. The first question asked whether it was easy or hard to work with the program. Sixty-five percent of custodial parents said it was easy to work with the child support program.
Figure 1. Was It Easy or Hard to Work with the Child Support Program?
The second question was a follow-up for the 35% of custodial parents who said it was hard to work with the child support program. The follow-up question asked the parent to select (from eight possibilities) all the reasons they find it hard to work with the program. Figure 2 shows the list of possible reasons. Next to each reason is the percent of custodial parents who checked that reason. As you can see, the percentages sum to well over 100%, indicating that many parents selected multiple reasons.
Forty one percent of custodial parents who found it hard to work with the child support program said it was because the services received were not helpful. Thirty nine percent said that they tried to call the office, but the wait was too long or they couldn’t get through. Thirty seven percent said that their calls or emails were not returned. One third said the program was too slow to enforce and collect child support. Thirty two percent said the paperwork was complicated or time-consuming. Nineteen percent said the website was not user-friendly. Eighteen percent said they were unsure who to contact. Twelve percent said there was another reason they found it hard to work with the child support program.
Figure 2. Reasons why it is difficult to work with a child support program
The 35% of parents who said it was hard to work with the child support program were asked for suggestions on how to improve services. Over 100 parents provided a suggestion. Several themes dominated these responses: better communication; increase staff; hire or train staff to be more respectful and empathetic toward parents; improve enforcement; and make information more available. Many of the suggestions regarding better communication had to do with improving phone access. The recommendation to improve enforcement covered several topics, including improve locate, improve interstate enforcement, and work with the tax department. The suggestion to make information more available also covered several topics, including payment records, general information, contact information for staff, and improving the website.
In summary, most custodial parents found it easy to work with the program. If they found it hard, a key reason was communication. They often desired an easier way to communicate with the child support program.
For more information, contact Elaine Sorensen at elaine.sorensen@acf.hhs.gov.
Policy Recap
OCSS issued recent guidance to help states and tribes develop and operate their child support programs according to federal laws and regulations:
About Child Support Report
Child Support Report is published monthly by the Office of Child Support Services. We welcome articles and high-quality digital photos to consider for publication. We reserve the right to edit for style, content and length, or not accept an article. OCSS does not endorse the practices or individuals in this newsletter. You may reprint an article in its entirety (or contact the author or editor for permission to excerpt); please identify Child Support Report as the source.
| Meg Sullivan Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, performing the delegable duties of the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families | Tanguler Gray Commissioner, OCSS |
| Crystal Peeler Director, Division of Customer Communications | Andrew Phifer Editor, CSR.Editor@acf.hhs.gov |