In recent years, local, state, and federal child support offices started reexamining how their enforcement and collection roles can be paired with services that foster meaningful parental engagement and invest in the social and economic well-being of parents paying child support. In examining child support services, it is important to understand the reach they have throughout federal benefits. Across the continuum of human services programs, rules related to child support can impact whether someone qualifies for benefits, what amount they can receive, or the amount of child support they owe – including but not limited to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, childcare, and child welfare. Often, federal and state policies’ options regarding child support practices are made by individual programs in distinct silos from each other. This American Public Human Services Association resource discusses strategies that can help create the enabling conditions for continued progress in re-centering state and local child support collaborations with other human services program areas.

In September 2024, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) continued its investment in economic mobility with a gathering of state government officials from across ACF’s Region V. This gathering emphasized the role states can play in engaging families in the policy process, including working with philanthropy to ensure funding for creative solutions to problems confronting parents, and actively collaborating with state legislators to ensure the actionability of legislative solutions. This ACF resource provides a recap of the Region V summit, including an overview of each state’s innovative strategies to support expectant parents and the parents of young children. Strategies highlighted include the creation of a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) engagement unit in Illinois, expansion of Medicaid coverage for 12 months postpartum in Indiana, the launching of Family Connects in Ohio and Family Impacts Teams project in Michigan, standing up of the newly created Department of Children, Youth, and Families in Minnesota, and the creation of the Wisconsin Child Support Parent Advisory Group.

On September 27, 2024, the Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) announced their awarding of $4.7 million to help states and tribes develop and refine child support-led employment efforts for noncustodial parents under the Next Generation Child Support Employment (NextGen) grant. OCSS awarded an additional $3.4 million to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to provide technical assistance and evaluate the NextGen demonstration projects. This OCSS announcement highlights the demonstration grants recipients, including six states and two tribes.

The COVID-19 pandemic began during the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) demonstration project, which tested a new approach to child support service delivery. The PJAC demonstration project integrated principles of procedural justice into enforcement practices in six child support agencies across the United States. This MDRC report uses data collected during the public health emergency to examine how three child support agencies experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on how employment, earnings, and unemployment insurance patterns changed for members of the PJAC sample after the onset of the pandemic.

The San Francisco Department of Child Support Services (SF DCSS) has piloted a voluntary program that explores an alternative to monthly cash payments, allowing parents to meet their child support obligations through agreed-upon, in-kind contributions. This approach acknowledges how some parents already contribute to their children and empowers them to flexibly address their families’ changing needs. It is modeled after the Yurok Tribe’s child support system, which allows parents to support their children in ways beyond monetary support, including providing diapers, fish, firewood, and child care. This Urban Institute fact sheet summarizes the implementation process of this pilot as an introduction for other counties that may be considering offering in-kind child support alternatives.

In February 2024, the Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) announced a new rule - Elimination of Tribal Non-Federal Share Requirement (ACF-OCSS-AT-24-02) - which supports the growth of the tribal child support program by eliminating burdensome costs. It will make it easier for existing and new tribal child support programs to access the funding they need to operate. This OCSS resource announces the new rule and highlights the impact it will have on tribal child support programs.

Today, 60 federally recognized sovereign tribes and tribal consortia in 22 states implement Title IV-D tribal child support programs. This Institute for Research on Poverty literature review provides an overview of laws and policies that shape tribal child support programs; investigates the demographic and economic contexts of tribal communities; describes state and tribal program implementation; summarizes the small body of academic research regarding tribal child support programs and outcomes; and concludes with opportunities for future investigation.

States, counties, and tribes are modernizing their child support programs through holistic, family-centered policies and practices that build partnerships with parents instead of adversarial relationships. They go beyond collecting money to address underlying reasons for nonpayment, ensure that children benefit from payments, and facilitate effective co-parenting. Family-centered child support policies put children where they belong: at the center of child support policymaking. The Centering Child Well-Being in Child Support Policy toolkit, developed by Ascend at Aspen Institute, features new analysis of state child support director survey data. The toolkit offers innovations on: 

1. Family Distribution,
2. Reducing Arrears,
3. Right-Sizing Orders,
4. Income Supports,
5. Supporting Healthy Co-Parenting, and 
6. Providing Equal Access to Justice.

The Knowledge Works initiative from the Office of Child Support Services helps child support agencies implement or enhance a noncustodial parent employment program by highlighting the work of successful programs in other jurisdictions. This compendium of resources can help assess programs, plan, implement, and determine funding sources to develop child support-led noncustodial parent employment programs.

This compendium includes overviews of existing model programs; planning tools, policy resources, and funding guidance; resources that show “What Works”; sample documents, forms, and templates; and assistance with establishing a noncustodial parent employment program.

On May 31, 2024, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) announced a proposed rule to give state child support programs the flexibility to use federal funding to provide employment and training services for eligible noncustodial parents. Providing employment and training services to unemployed and underemployed parents who have child support obligations has proven to benefit children and their parents. These types of programs result in increased employment rates and earnings as well as the amount, number, and regularity of child support payments. This ACF press announcement explains how the proposed rule would allow state child support programs to use federal funding for services such as skills assessments, occupational training, and job placement. The deadline to submit comments via Regulations.gov is July 30, 2024.