Child Support Report - January 1996

The increases, based on an examination of approximately 4,000 births prior to and 4,000 following the introduction of in-hospital paternity interventions, are the result of several complementary activities. Among these are: simplification of voluntary acknowledgement procedures- which have since been incorporated into state statute; efforts to approach all unmarried parents to explain the benefits of paternity and to assist in adding the father's name to the birth certificate; the replacement of notarized with witnessed signatures; and concerted efforts by project staff to train hospital personnel on paternity.

Interviews with 100 unmarried mothers indicate that parental relationship factors feature heavily in the decision to put the father's name on the birth certificate. Mothers who signed their part of the voluntary paternity acknowledgement form were likely to report cohabitation or a long-term relationship with the baby's father. The chief reasons cited by mothers for refusal to sign were a bad relationship with the baby's father, followed by concern about the father gaining custody or visitation rights.

Voluntary paternity acknowledgement also was significantly more appealing to parents who were financially independent at the time of the child's birth and who had never been involved with AFDC or Medicaid. Unmarried mothers who signed the voluntary paternity acknowledgement affidavit, compared to those who did not, were more likely to report that the father of the child was employed on a full-time basis and provided financial support during their pregnancy. They also expressed expectations of continued financial assistance.

Fifteen months after delivery, voluntary paternity acknowledgement continued to be correlated with the financial status of unmarried parents. Reviews of state data bases for AFDC, Medicaid, and Child Support Enforcement revealed that acknowledgers were significantly more likely than those who did not acknowledge paternity to be financially independent and uninvolved with AFDC or the child support system. Fifteen months after delivery only 25 percent of those who acknowledged paternity were on AFDC compared to 41 percent of those who failed to acknowledge. Similarly, 15 months after the birth about a quarter of those who acknowledged paternity voluntarily were in the child support system compared to 40 percent of those who did not acknowledge.

While the in-hospital effort led to widespread improvements in voluntary paternity acknowledgement for all demographic subgroups, the process remained more appealing to certain types of unmarried parents. Voluntary acknowledgement rates were significantly higher for unmarried mothers who were white, educated at least at the high school level, employed during pregnancy, and had no more than one prior birth. Women of color achieved acknowledgement rates that approached- but fell somewhat short of- rates observed for their white counterparts with similar education levels.

The findings of the Project provide insights on how in-hospital programs can be conducted more effectively. They also offer clues on how voluntary acknowledgements can be made more attractive to less self-sufficient elements of the unmarried population. These are summarized below.

• Jurisdictions should examine their voluntary paternity acknowledgement procedures with an eye toward simplification. The key to a successful in-hospital program is a simple administrative process to put the father's name on the birth certificate.

• Child Support enforcement agencies should take a lead role in initiating and sustaining in-hospital paternity programs. Some hospital workers fear that in-hospital paternity efforts may discourage fathers from coming to the hospital, jeopardize a woman's safety and her custodial rights, and deter mothers from seeking prenatal care. An effective program must address all of these concerns. In addition, high rates of hospital staff turnover necessitate that paternity be the subject of frequent training and education if the issue is to remain visible.

• Child support agencies should amend their intake procedures and establish strong relationships with the vital records agency. Intake workers in the child support enforcement agency must be trained to interview unmarried parents closely about their paternity acknowledgement experiences at the hospital and/or obtain hard copies of birth certificates in order to elicit more accurate information. Failing to do this may result in misclassification of many cases as needing paternity to be acknowledged.

• In order to realize the greatest child support benefits from in-hospital paternity programs, child support enforcement workers need to have strong and positive communication links with personnel at vital records agencies. They also need computerized access to vital records agencies in order to be able to visually inspect birth certificates in the process of determining the paternity status of clients.

Copies of the report, "The Child Support Improvement Project: Paternity Establishment," are available from the Center for Policy Research at a cost of $10. Please include a check made out to the Center for that amount with your request and send it to the attention of Ms. Louise Kosenski, Center for Policy Research, 1720 Emerson Street, Denver, CO 80218.

Follow-up Report

No Excuses!

Upbeat Parents

Calling their inspiration "Upbeat Parents," they arranged for a brief message to be printed on outgoing child support checks introducing the program and requesting the residential parent to phone for more information.

The program encourages custodial parents to nominate noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) who demonstrate positive shared parenting- including maintaining their financial obligations.

Those noncustodial parents who are certified "Upbeat" receive a Certificate of Recognition from CSEA Director Campbell and Trumbull County Commissioners, as well as a letter of congratulations from Campbell, for their outstanding performance as parents.

"We all see the posters with the deadbeat dads, who are wanted for failing to pay support," Thompson says. "The Upbeat Parents program is a direct and positive contrast to that." The response has been gratifying. Already, an estimated 300 Upbeat Parents have been recognized.

A welcome vote of confidence for responsible noncustodial parents who are too often overshadowed by the image of nonpaying child support obligors, Upbeat Parents received the Ohio Family Services Association Innovation Award for 1995.

If you would like further information about Upbeat Parents, please call Kathy Thompson at (216) 675-2732.

Sharing the Parenting

• Separate the task of parenting from other potentially explosive issues in their relationship;

• Observe and respect one another's differing parenting styles;

• Accept specific differences, but agree on general goals for helping their children develop into responsible, independent, loving, moral, and skilled adults;

• Discuss parenting differences away from the kids;

• Minimize the stress children feel when they go from one parent to the other; and

• Communicate respect for the other parent to their children, even when they may be angry with that parent.

  Role Expectations of Fatherhood

  One of the hardest role expectations for many men to overcome is that which equates being a good father with being a good provider. Men who cannot, or fear that they may not, adequately provide for their families often feel like failures- both as fathers and as men. This can be especially true for those who face limited economic opportunities.

  When such men can define being a successful father as separate from being a good provider, they can invest themselves in other important aspects of parenting. In so doing, they not only help guide their children into adulthood but also build success and satisfaction into their own lives, despite the economic hardship.

  "Sharing the Parenting" and "Role Expectations of Fatherhood" are both reprinted with permission, from: "Dialogue," Volume Three, Number 4, Fall 1995, published by the Institute for Mental Health Initiatives. The Institute promotes mental health by making the latest research in the behavioral sciences accessible to the public and the creative community.

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  GAO Reports on Privatization
  States Turn to Private Companies for Help

  
  

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  The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has released a report on the privatization of child support enforcement services: Child Support Enforcement: States and Localities Move to Privatized Services. "As states confront the need to improve their services to the public," the GAO says, "many are turning to the private sector to augment their child support enforcement programs."

  Investigators visited and interviewed child support officials and contractors in Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia. Telephone interviews were carried out with officials in the remaining states which have privatization initiatives (see map), and additional data were gathered through an analysis of child support contracts.

  In summary, GAO found that one or more child support services are privatized statewide in 20 states and at the local office level in 18 states. Investigators identified 21 contracts for full-service child support operations, about half of which are served by one of two major contractors.

  Also identified: 40 other contracts for collections and related location services. Four major contractors provide most of these services. Finally, the GAO team found nine contracts for payment processing services and eight for location services only. According to the report, released November 20, 1995, three new contracts are planned to be awarded in two states that have existing privatization contracts, and at least five new contracts are planned to be awarded in four states that have no privatization contracts. Five of the current states with contracts have privatized services at both the statewide and local levels.

  A copy of the report can be ordered by mail from the U.S. General Accounting Office, PO Box 6015, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015. Please ask for report number GAOHEHS-96-43FS. The first copy is free; additional copies are $2 each. Orders may also be placed by calling (202) 512-6000 or by using fax number (301) 258-4066.

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  Training Center Announces TOT Course Delivery

  
  

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  Good News! The National Training Center (NTC) will present its popular, acclaimed Training of Trainers (TOT) course April 22-26 at the Ramada Old Town Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. The TOT, a fast-paced and lively mix of training theory and practice, gives state trainers the know-how to design and deliver effective job oriented courses. Says NTC Chief, Yvette Riddick: "Trainers can apply the TOT's principles to adapt generic or general courses on training to CSE-specific needs, as well as to design customized in-house courses." Enrollment is limited, so sign up today. Call Roy Nix at (202) 401-5685 to register or to get more information.

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  GPRA Update: Seattle's Self-Help Resource Center

  
  By: Jeff Alsdorf Return to top of newsletter

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  In January 1995, the Seattle Field Office of Washington State's IV-D agency inaugurated a Self-Help Resource Center (SHRC) for pro se family law litigants. The SHRC is also a pilot project under the Federal Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA).

  Part of a national movement to make the legal system more accessible to citizens, the Seattle project has formed working links to other local facilitation providers, legal advocacy groups, and court system stakeholders.

  The SHRC project gives pro se litigants the information they need to navigate their cases through the court process. Free information packets contain legal forms with instructions on how to complete and file the forms, how to serve notice on the other party, where to file papers, and how to comply with the timeframes fixed for each stage of the action. Customers are people who already have IV-D cases and are referred to SHRC by support enforcement officers with whom they are working. Neighborhood law clinics and other "facilitation services" are also referring people to the pro se project.

  In its first 11 months of operation, SHRC, which serves both custodial and noncustodial parents, has provided 1084 customers with self-help packets. Most of them want to modify their child support orders and do not want to wait the normal three years for the federally mandated review. Though in much smaller demand, the project also provides pre se materials for contempt actions to enforce visitation rights. The project has plans to offer information packets for "do-it-yourself divorces" and also wants to expand pro se services into the area of reducing children's medical expenses to "sum-certain" judgments. (The agency policy is not to collect these expenses unless they are reduced to judgment in court.)

  A followup survey to assess SHRC services garnered appreciative comments from those who received them; it also showed the frustrations that people felt about the complexity of the whole process. Based on this feedback, Seattle CSE staff have rewritten the instructions for pro se support modifications to make them more "user-friendly."

  The revised pro se packets have met with favorable responses from other groups involved in offering pro se legal services. Several local organizations, for instance, the King County Superior Court Facilitators, the Society for Counsel Representing Accused, and the Northwest Women's Law Center are using the materials. Also, the Office of the Administrator of the Courts of Washington State has distributed the instruction sets to all the State's Superior Court law libraries, and endorsed them as models of simple language and clear format. Finally, the IV-D agencies in Idaho, Oregon, and Connecticut have requested samples of the packets in considering whether to launch their own pro se projects in child support.

  Seattle's line support enforcement officers have given positive feedback about the SHRC. Essentially, they feel that having the resource center close at hand has eased their negotiations with noncustodial parents. Before, when a parent felt an order was out of line with his earnings, enforcement officers couldn't do much more than suggest the parent consult an attorney to get the order reduced. Now, with the resource center, support enforcement officers can offer parents a way of helping themselves to get the order modified. Once obligated parents see that our aim is simply to collect a reasonable level of support, the support officer can proceed on a less adversarial, more constructive, basis. For more information about the Self-Help Resource Center, call me at (206) 587-5142.

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  Jeff Alsdorf is a Support Enforcement Officer IV with the Washington State Division of Child Support.

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  What is GPRA?

  
  

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  Can't remember precisely what GPRA's all about? Signed into law by President Clinton in August 1993, the Government Performance and Results Act reforms the way federal agencies do business by requiring program officials to decide what they want to achieve and then report on their performance. GPRA emphasizes service quality and public satisfaction through setting program goals, measuring performance against those goals, and reporting publicly on progress.

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  New NPRM Issued

  
  

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  A notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) has been issued to amend federal regulations governing the following procedures: (1) for making information available to consumer reporting agencies; (2) for extending the deadline for certification of an operational computerized support enforcement system; and (3) for revising regulations in response to the President's Memorandum of March 4, 1995. The NPRM was published on January 29, 1996, in the Federal Register (61 FR 2774).

  The President's Memorandum to heads of Departments and Agencies, to which this proposed rule responds, announced a government-wide Regulatory Reinvention Initiative to reduce or eliminate mandated burdens on states, other governmental agencies, or the private sector. The NPRM implements the Social Security Act ("the Act") Amendments of 1994, which amended section 466(a) of the Act to require states to have procedures which establish periodic reporting of child support arrearage information to consumer reporting agencies. Also, it implements Public Law 104-35, which amended section 454(24) of the Act to extend until October 1, 1997 the deadline for having a certified operational computerized support enforcement system.

  The proposed rule would remove sections 302.15(b), 302.33(c)(1) and (e), 302.34(b), 302.36(a)(1) through (a)(5), 302.37, 302.54(a), 303.10, 303.73(a)(1) through (c), 304.95, and Part 306 in its entirety. These rules cover obsolete, out-of-date, and nonmandated provisions regarding maintenance of records, nonAFDC applicants, cooperative agreements, interstate services, distribution, notice of collection of assigned support, case assessment and prioritization, use of the Courts of the United States to enforce court orders, State Commissions on Child Support, and optional cooperative agreements for medical support enforcement. In addition, the rule would revise sections 301.1, 301.15, 302.34, 302.54, 302.70, 302.85, 303.31, 303.73, 303.100, 303.105, 304.10, 304.20, 307.5 and 307.15. Technical changes including recodification would result from many of these amendments.

  Consideration will be given to written comments received by March 29, 1996. Public comments may be addressed to: Deputy Director, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Department of Health and Human Services, 370 L'Enfant Promenade SW, Washington, DC 20447, Attention: Director, Division of Policy and Planning.

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  Krudys New CSE Program Manager in NY Region

  
  

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  Mary Ann Higgins, ACF Regional Administrator for the New York Regional Office, announced the appointment, effective January 16, of Joanne Krudys as Program Manager for Child Support Enforcement in the Region. Previously the Program Manager for AFDC/JOBS., the appointment of Krudys, who is recognized as a strong collaborator, is expected to generate increased coordination between CSE and other ACF programs.

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  FYI Census Bureau Report- Child Care Costs: A Greater Burden for the Poor

  
  

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  As we think about all that collecting child support means to a family, here is another issue to weigh. Poor families who paid for child care for their preschool-age children spent 18 percent of their income on such care in 1993, compared to just 7 percent for nonpoor families, according to the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

  Not all families pay for child care. About 4 in 10 (37 percent) of poor families compared with less than 6 in 10 (58 percent) of nonpoor families paid for child care for their preschoolers in 1993. On average, poor families paid about $50 a week for child care compared to $76 a week for nonpoor families.

  "Even though poor families pay less for child care, they feel the biggest pinch in their budget because they spend a larger portion of their income on child care than non poor families," according to Lynne Casper, author of the report, "What Does it Cost to Mind Our Preschoolers?"

  For a copy of the report, call the Census Bureau's Customer Services Branch at (301) 457-4100.

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