As I mentioned earlier this year, I’m thrilled to be engaging child support professionals in person again! One of my recent trips took me overseas to the Netherlands for The Hague Special Commission. Spending a few days in the company of child support professionals from around the world was a wonderful experience. It confirmed that despite differences in language, program structures, and laws, we all share the same deep commitment to helping children and families.
Serving families where one parent lives outside the U.S. is a critical part of the mission of the IV-D child support program, and the 2007 Hague Child Support Convention provides an important framework for serving these international families. After being postponed by the pandemic for two years, a Special Commission to review the operation of the 2007 Convention finally convened in The Hague in May 2022. I was delighted to lead the U.S. delegation to express our views on the Convention’s operation. Along with delegations from 57 countries and six intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (including the National Child Support Enforcement Association), we discussed Convention policy issues and practical issues, such as the need for translated Convention forms in multiple languages and updated country profiles.
The consensus was that the Convention is working well, and I was pleased to confirm that the U.S. experience with Convention cases has been very positive. Thank you to everyone in the child support program who works on international cases for your hard work and dedication.
Resources for international cases
As the Central Authority for the United States under the Convention, OCSE is committed to supporting state child support agencies with international cases. We recently issued additional guidance on international cases, and we’re working to implement the Central Authority Payment program, a centralized federal service that will assist states with transmitting international child support payments. We’re also working to implement iForms, software which will allow state caseworkers to easily generate the required Convention forms in multiple languages.
We hope these initiatives will assist states in managing international child support cases and allow us to better serve these families. I’m confident that we can continue working with foreign child support programs to provide excellent service to families around the world.
Tanguler Gray, Commissioner
This blog gives the commissioner a forum to communicate directly with child support professionals and other stakeholders about relevant topics. The Commissioner’s Voice is reprinted from the July 2022 Child Support Report newsletter.