While the child support program has been recently successful in supporting low-income single parents, many single parents still do not receive child support. Child support can often be a vital financial resource for families in poverty. In this study, researchers look at the effect of child support debt on nonresident fathers’ child support payments and formal earnings in Wisconsin.

The interaction between child support and TANF is vital for the success of not only each program, but also, and more importantly, each client’s success. As a result, Welfare Peer TA sponsored a Focus Group in Anaheim, California called “TANF/Child Support Enforcement Collaboration.” The Focus Group emphasized the need for collaboration between the child support enforcement and TANF agencies, and the need for solutions to identify gaps in services for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants.

Child support is crucial for supporting low-income families; it makes up on average about 30 percent of family income. Authored by the Congressional Research Service, this report addresses the effects of adopting the changes made through the Deficit Reduction Act in terms of child support pass-through and disregard. Authors review possible indirect behavioral effects of implementing this policy.

Through the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Partners for Fragile Families (PFF) demonstration program intended to affect systems change to ultimately improve outcomes for both parents and children in low-income families. Specifically, this report provides data on economic and child support outcomes for the project’s participants.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) maintains this comprehensive map of all State child support enforcement web pages.

From the National Center for Children in Poverty, this article highlights effective programs, policy opportunities, and other strategies to improve educational outcomes for children. This brief is to inform policymakers and other stakeholders on strategies to promote the healthy educational development of children.

In this report, The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) highlights the findings of the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) reports which describe the state of child support efforts in this country. The CLASP report also discusses what can be made of the seemingly contradictory results of these two reports.

This fact sheet describes the Child Support Enforcement Program and other child support initiatives.

This is a November 2003 Newsletter generated by the Welfare Peer Technical Assistance Network on how TANF and Child Support Enforcement can partner to better serve families.

Authored by Jessica Pearson. Report prepared by the Center for Policy Research and was supported by a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.