Cooperation/Good Cause Forum

February 11-12th, 1997

Embassy Suites, Alexandria, Virginia

Sponsored by the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), and the Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, funded the cooperation/good cause forum. I'd like to thank participants at both the preliminary consultation and the forum for their expertise and recommendations, Bob Harris for his initial suggestion to hold the forum, and Michelle Jefferson and Jeff Ball of the Division of State and Local Assistance for their support and guidance. The forum planning committee, Susan Greenblatt, Linda Mellgren, Jerry Silverman, David Siegel, Ann Slayton, David Arnaudo, Dail Moore, Andrew Hagan, Ella Lawson, Eileen McDaniel, Marilyn Cohen, and Vilma Guinn, and the logistics committee, Verdell Fields and Jean Robinson, deserve thanks for their many hours of hard work that ensured that the forum was a success. Thanks to Marilyn Ray Smith and Vicki Turetsky for providing valuable comments on the draft of this report.

Note:

In this report victims are sometimes referred to as women, and batterers as men. This represents the majority of reported domestic violence cases from current statistical evidence, but in no way is meant to infer that there are not also male victims of domestic violence and female batterers. [ See Browne, A., When Battered Women Kill , (1987). ]

Susan Notar, Program Specialist

Office of Child Support Enforcement

Framework:

PRWORA

The new welfare law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, P.L. 104-193) made several important changes affecting the cooperation/good cause determination. First, it transferred the "cooperation" determination [ See section 333 of PRWORA.] that an individual applying for, or receiving, public assistance, is cooperating "in good faith" with the State in establishing the paternity of, or in establishing, modifying, or enforcing a support order for any child of the individual, from the public assistance IV-A agency, to the child support enforcement IV-D agency. [ The terms "IV-A" and "IV-D refer to specific sections of the Social Security Act that provide statutory authority for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (formerly called the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program), and the Child Support Enforcement programs, respectively.] Second, the law allows the child support enforcement agency to define what constitutes "cooperation in good faith" by providing the State agency the name of the noncustodial parent and other information. Third, the PRWORA allows the State to determine which agency, either the child support enforcement, public assistance, or Medicaid Agency will define what constitutes "good cause" for not having to cooperate with child support enforcement, and for applying the "good cause exception" to the cooperation requirement. While historically, "good cause" claims were allowed for reasons other than domestic violence, such as pending legal actions for adoptions, [ See 45 CFR 232.42. Of course, with the passage of welfare reform, States may now define what constitutes "good cause". ] for this forum we decided to focus primarily on the issue of domestic violence for good cause claims.

Penalties under the PRWORA

If an individual does not cooperate with paternity establishment and child support enforcement, and does not have "good cause" for failing to cooperate, the State must deny the family at least 25% of the public assistance grant and may deny the family any assistance. [ See Title I, õ 408(a)(2) of the PRWORA.] If the State fails to deduct the amount of the penalty for noncooperation, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must reduce the amount of the State block grant for the next fiscal year by 5 percent. [ Title I, õ 409(a)(5) PRWORA.]

Objectives of Forum:

The impetus for holding a forum on cooperation/good cause and domestic violence came from several sources. First, after the passage of the PRWORA, debate arose concerning the possible impacts of: 1) new requirements in the law, such as time limited assistance, the 90% paternity establishment ratio, and the tougher cooperation requirement (noncustodial parents may no longer "attest" to a lack of information about the noncustodial parent without being penalized if good cause is not determined to exist); and 2) how the new requirements would affect stress levels on families and the rate of domestic violence. [ See for example the following article showing a high prevalence of domestic violence among homeless women and recipients of public assistance, Bassuk, Ellen L., M.D., Weinreb, Linda F., M.D., et al., "The Characteristics and Needs of Sheltered Homeless and Low-Income Housed Mothers", Journal of the American Medical Association , August 28, 1996, Vol. 276. No. 8.] Second, new data, some of it anecdotal, revealed a high rate, up to 20%, of current domestic violence among welfare recipients. [ For example, see the report from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, "In Harm's Way? Domestic Violence, AFDC Receipt, and Welfare Reform in Massachusetts", February, 1997. In this study, the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Center for Survey Research, designed a survey and interviewed a representative sample of 734 women who receive Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and found that 19.5% of the women had been abused in the past year by an intimate partner.] The forum afforded an opportunity for serious discussion on the impact of domestic violence on welfare and child-support case-processing. Third, the PRWORA requires the Federal Office of ChildSupport Enforcement to provide technical assistance and training to Federal and State staff, and perform research and demonstration projects of regional or national significance. OCSE was interested to learn what type of technical assistance and training States want and need in the cooperation/good cause area.

OCSE formed a planning committee and decided that the three main goals of a cooperation/good cause forum would be to hold discussions with experts working in the area of cooperation/good cause as revised by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 to: 1) learn what specific training/technical assistance needs exist and how such needs might be addressed; 2) learn what specific policy guidance on the new cooperation/good cause provisions is wanted; and 3) share expertise on current State practices.

Preliminary Consultation:

Members of the planning committee held a preliminary consultation with representatives of community-based men's organizations and low income fathers' groups a week before the cooperation/good cause forum to ensure that the cooperation/good cause forum benefitted from their perspectives on the issues. Several of the representatives from the preliminary consultation also attended the larger cooperation/good cause forum. Several major themes that emerged from the preliminary consultation were: 1) a general consensus of zero tolerance towards violence against partners and children; 2) educating batterers and potential batterers about alternatives to violence such as "anger management classes" to express their feelings (note that such classes may only be appropriate in some cases--not in many cases of domestic violence where the root cause of the problem is not "anger" but the wish to dominate and control); 3) including noncustodial parents in welfare reform job training and employment programs so that they can pay the child support they owe and so that they do not feel threatened by their partners, and to improve their sense of self-respect; 4) to help low income fathers navigate the paternity establishment and child support system; and 5) to recognize that many low income men want to pay their child support but avoid contact with formal legal systems as much as possible because they are unable to pay and because of discomfort with what such systems represent (e.g., a high incarceration rate among their peers). Participants in the preliminary consultation also spoke of the need for Federal and State governmental agencies and community-based organizations to work together to address these complex issues.

Cooperation/Good Cause Forum Attendees:

About 45 individuals representing a wide array of interests attended the forum. Attendees included representatives of Federal, State, and local child support enforcement and public assistance offices, the Department of Justice, the Health Care Financing Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and advocates representing diverse constituencies.

Highlights of Forum Discussion:

Terminology

Many participants voiced concern over the ambiguity of the terms "cooperation" and "good cause," and the fact that the two terms are linked so completely when they often involve such different considerations. Sometimes the term "noncooperation" is broadly used to indicate missing case information or no-shows, without regard to whether the cause of the problem is the deliberate refusal to cooperate, or instead administrative or logistical problems. By the same token, "good cause" may be treated as a yes or no category, without any formal effort to assess the relationship between possible domestic violence and the ability to pursue child support. Participants noted that if "experts" on cooperation/good cause find the terms confusing, how can we expect front-line workers to understand the terms and to clearly convey their meaning to applicants/recipients of services? Participants recommended alternatives for "good cause" that included "safety concern" or "safety waiver," both of which may be more intelligible to custodial parents. One question about such terms however, is whether they would apply equally well to good cause claims not involving domestic violence.

Some participants raised the issue of the low numbers of "good cause" claimed in the past. For example, in OCSE's most recent annual report to Congress, and based on State reports to the Office of Family Assistance, some States reported that no custodial parents claimed good cause for refusing to cooperate in establishing paternity and securing child support. Nationwide, States reported few cases in which good cause was claimed, numbers that don't accord with research findings about the percentage of welfare cases in which domestic violence is a current issue. There was some discussion about why this was so. Are the data bad? Did States actually grant good cause claims and not report the number of cases to the Federal government? Do applicants/recipients of services not understand what the "good cause" exception to the cooperation requirement is? Do workers not explain it well? Have the low numbers of good cause claimed in the past been related to the fact that applicants/recipients of services were able to "attest" to a lack of information about the noncustodial parent, so they never reached the "good cause" determination, and were able to continue receiving benefits? Under the newer, tougher, welfare rules, in most States applicants will not be able to merely claim a lack of information about the noncustodial parent and still obtain assistance, they will instead have to make a showing of good faith cooperation. To be able to address these questions, this area needs further study.

Intake

Many advocates have identified the intake process in public assistance offices as one that is not conducive to revealing personal information necessary to discuss domestic violence. The information is a prerequisite for establishing a good cause claim to not to have to cooperate with paternity establishment and child support enforcement. Such offices are often noisy and crowded, without sufficient privacy. Caseworkers are overwhelmed with huge caseloads and may not provide applicants/recipients with the type of individual attention needed to ferret out cases in which women fear for their safety if they cooperate, from those in which, with some safety planning, paternity establishment and child support could be safely pursued.

Participants disagreed which intake process in the cooperation/good cause area works "better" for as a vehicle for obtaining information that someone is possibly in a battering relationship and may be able to claim good cause: 1) one where a sole interviewer conducts more in-depth interviews with all applicants/recipients of services and tries to ascertain whether an individual has reason to claim good cause; or 2) one where one worker conducts multiple interviews trying to obtain basic information for the IV-A benefits, and another worker attempts to obtain information about possible evidence of "good cause" not to cooperate.

Participants disagreed whether in-depth interviews with all applicants/recipients of services was a good use of limited resources. Some believed that applicants/recipients of services might not develop the rapport needed to discuss violent incidents if they are required to speak with many different workers. Some participants questioned whether IV-A or IV-D workers should be asking about domestic violence at all given the limited expertise workers may possess in this area. Some participants suggested that "experts" should be hired to perform an assessment whether good cause because of domestic violence is appropriate in a given case. Some participants advocated the use of contracting out intake interviews/screening functions to individuals with more expertise in making such determinations. With the little amount of data we have currently, it is unclear which process works "better." Pilot projects with evaluations may demonstrate which types of intake processes produce "better" results, and how to define what "better" results are.

Administration of Cooperation/Good Cause Determinations

In the past, the public assistance agency made the cooperation and good cause determination and was supposed to forward information to the child support enforcement agency whether an applicant or recipient was required to cooperate with paternity establishment and child support enforcement. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this process often did not work smoothly, in some cases because the public assistance agency: 1) did not aggressively pursue adverse determinations, even if there was apreliminary indication of noncooperation; or 2) did not refer information to the child support enforcement agency. In other cases, participants stated that child support enforcement agencies did not use the information they did receive.

While the PRWORA has heightened the importance of the cooperation determination, it has made information processing a multi-agency coordinated task by moving the cooperation determination from the public assistance to the child support enforcement agency. Historically, child support enforcement agencies have lacked experience in making such determinations. Additionally, interagency cooperation becomes even more important because the PRWORA allows States to determine which one of three agencies may make the good cause determination: 1) the public assistance agency; 2) the child support enforcement agency; or 3) the Medicaid agency. These changes will require effective and efficient communication between agencies if different ones conduct the cooperation and good cause determinations, and may result in all fifty States making the cooperation/good cause determination in different ways.

There are many possible configurations of the cooperation/good cause determination under the PRWORA, each of which has positive and negative aspects. Three examples will illustrate some of these. First, the child support enforcement agency could perform both the cooperation and good cause determinations. Ohio has chosen this option in its "Ohio First" project. This option has the advantage of being simple to administer by not requiring interface between different agencies with different cultures and possibly different automated systems. One possible disadvantage of such a structure is that it places the decision with an agency that did not make it in the past. Another potential problem is that child support agencies are in general, structured for mass processing of cases rather than individual casework. Good cause determination requires individual case inquiries.

A second possibility would be for the child support enforcement agency to make the cooperation determination, and another agency, such as public assistance, to make the good cause determination. This option has the benefits of spreading the work load between two agencies and leaving part of the determination with the public assistance agency, that has experience in making such decisions; but it raises the same type of information interface issues that posed problems in this area in the past.

A third way to organize the cooperation/good cause process, and one which States such as Minnesota are considering, would be for the child support enforcement and public assistance agencies to make a joint determination of cooperation and then refer cases where good cause is possible to a decisionmaking body within the agencies to determine whether good cause should be granted. The advantage of this structure is that it gives the public assistance agency, which already has experience making cooperation determinations, a role in the process. A disadvantage is that it will require concerted effort and time expenditure on the part of public assistance and child support agencies for it to work.

Participants spoke of the need for pilot projects or other research to examine what type of configurations work "best." Whichever way States structure the cooperation/good cause determination, participants noted the need for better interface and communication between agencies than has occurred in the past. Participants pointed out the need for technical assistance in fostering such partnerships.

Culture Change

Discussion also focused on how welfare and child support enforcement agencies can improve the level of trust applicants and recipients of services have toward the offices. This would involve culture change among managers and caseworkers to try to not view applicants and recipients of services with as much suspicion. It could also involve increased communication between public assistance and child support enforcement staff and possibly joint training. It was hoped that this might encourage victims of domestic violence to disclose abuse. Concerns raised in this area however, included a lack of resources and staff time particularly with regard to high caseloads, and changing priorities as States meet their new responsibilities under welfare reform.

The Administration for Children and Families has held "New Visions" training on culture change around the nation including AFDC, child support, and JOBS workers, and it was pointed out that its curriculum could serve as an example for future training in this area.

Corroboration

To corroborate claims of good cause for domestic violence, States have often required battered women to produce police reports and/or hospital records. Such records are difficult for battered women to produce as they often do not report abuse to the police or go to the hospital. Some participants noted that immigrant women are often particularly reluctant to have any contact with uniformed officials because they are from countries where it was unsafe to do so. Participants discussed the fact that while State workers may want to accept applicant's statements regarding abuse, with no corroborative evidence, State laws requiring specific forms of corroborative evidence may preclude workers from doing this. Participants suggested alternatives for corroboration listed that included signed statements from third parties such as neighbors, records from shelters, and newspaper accounts.

Participants also expressed concern about the lack of expertise of caseworkers corroborating the good cause determination, and that caseworkers should have the appropriate training to evaluate the sufficiency of the corroborating evidence. Participants also noted that States should consider implementing incentives for granting good cause claims, and having an appeals process with full jurisdiction over the issues in place if noncooperation is found or good cause claims are denied. Research in this area would be helpful to learn how to address these issues.

Confidentiality

A lot of discussion centered on how States can enforce child support while still protecting recipients of assistance from harm. The research indicates that most victims of domestic violence want child support enforced. In the past, good cause exemptions often meant that cases were not worked even though some cases at least, could have possibly proceeded safely with appropriate safety planning. TANF time limits raise the stakes for pursuing child support because families will not be able to rely on welfare if they do not receive the child support due them. Participants voiced concern that once States learn that an applicant/recipient of services is in a dangerous situation, States will grant the applicant/recipient good cause and not work the case to obtain child support, even if the applicant wants her case to be worked and thinks that it can be worked safely. Technical assistance could take many forms in this area, one of which could be working with States to take an approach that is more subtle than simply not working cases in which there are safety concerns. In other words, encouraging States to work cases, learn of domestic violence incidents, help to provide victims with resources to maintain personal safety, collect child support to encourage self sufficiency, and hold noncustodial parents responsible for the child support they owe.

The Director of the Washington State Address Confidentiality Program (ACP), Margaret McKinney, provided participants with insight as to how this unique program works (see "Specific Innovations" section below), and encouraged other States to implement such programs. She emphasized that the ACP should be viewed as one component of a battered person's strategy to protect herself/himself, to be used in conjunction with other safety planning and resource components.

Participants discussed the tension between the focus on mass processing of child support enforcement cases in the new welfare reform law, and the need for individual attention to cases to address issues of good cause and safety concerns. Discussion also centered on systems concerns and the Expanded Federal Parent Locator Service, and the need for a data-flagging mechanism at local, State, and Federal levels to stop the release of information on custodial parents to noncustodial parents where there are safety concerns.

Referrals/Safety Planning

Some participants voiced the concern that child support enforcement and public assistance workers have neither the expertise nor the time/resources to conduct safety planning or spend a lot of time making referrals to appropriate services related to domestic abuse, and that in some communities, there simply are no domestic violence resources, or those that do exist are already over burdened. One participant suggested that public assistance/child support enforcement agencies provide workers with laminated lists with 3-4 key resource telephone numbers for domestic violence organizations, and ensure that workers are trained to refer individuals where there appears to be safety concerns to these community resources. For this suggestion to work well, it wassuggested that agencies meet with representatives of domestic violence organizations ahead of time to determine whether they are willing to accept referrals from child support and public assistance offices. Cross training for all workers on respective programs may also be beneficial. Another possibility is for a worker in-house to be hired who has the expertise to conduct referrals and safety planning. This option raises resource concerns as well.

Noncustodial Parent Involvement

Participants spoke of the role that communities can play in the prevention of domestic violence, and how government agencies should enlist the support of community organizations to help in the welfare reform effort. They also noted the importance of increasing noncustodial parents' feelings of self-respect through job training and employment, especially when their former partners undergo job training and employment activities. This latter factor however, should be combined with an examination of batterers who want to control and dominate their partners or former partners, to more fully address the dynamics of battering relationships.

Participants also discussed research on unmarried low income fathers and the fact that such fathers have different concerns about noncooperation than those of other fathers, notably, that they are reluctant to acknowledge paternity because they do not want any involvement with the formal legal system. While low-income fathers often want to take active roles in their children's lives, they lack the income to provide formal child support. Many custodial parents are also concerned that by cooperating in paternity establishment and naming the father, they risk losing custody of their children. Many States do not offer custody and visitation/access services to parents who acknowledge paternity. low-income parents may feel uncomfortable if custody and access issues are not legally resolved contemporaneously with the paternity determination.

Specific Technical Assistance Requested:

Attendees of the forum suggested the following specific areas of technical assistance:

Information Sharing and Dissemination:

þcurrent State practices (for example, different intake procedures used, Anne Arundel County child care facility on site for use during intake, D.C. provision of bus tokens so to help applicants travel to the office for interviews);

þlists of existing resources, curricula (examples, domestic violence training curricula such as that used for child support workers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Taylor Institute's Jody Raphael's sample notice form for good cause and cooperation)

þmodels--decision-making for cooperation/good cause process, positive models for improving cooperation with child support enforcement.

þlists of resource people, "experts" on cooperation/good cause and domestic violence;

þexamples of statutory/regulatory language how States define "cooperation" and "good cause";

þthe development of alternative terminology to "cooperation" and "good cause" that is more comprehensible to caseworkers and applicants/recipients of services;

þsystems issues and the expanded FPLS, how to ensure that automated data on cases where good cause claimed or where there are safety concerns, not transmitted?

þinternational experience--Australia and U.K. dealing with mass case processing and need for individual attention to some cases;

þpossible establishment of OCSE cooperation/good cause home page on internet with links to other internet sources;

þinterpretation/translation services;

þFederal collection and dissemination of data (for example, data on the number of cases where noncooperation claimed) (definitional problems for reporting -what States consider to be "good cause");

þsharing information via disk as well as hard copy formats;

þfollowing example of the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement legislative implementation guides on welfare reform. These are brief papers on the child support enforcement provisions of the PRWORA that require States to enact laws to be in compliance. They contain a "plain English" version of the legislative language, effective date of section, examples of States that already have such practices in place, and articles and examples of State legislation on such provisions.

Training

þbasic training on domestic violence; (see Anne Arundel County, Maryland example below);

þhow to improve intake procedures;

þculture change and "new visions" training, fostering trust among applicants/recipients of child support and public assistance services;

þcross training, domestic violence workers and public assistance and child support enforcement workers, so they understand each other's programs and resource concerns;

þfostering interfaces among courts, agencies, child support, public assistance, medicaid, child care, head start.

Research

Participants spoke of the need for research in the following areas:

þboth quantitative and qualitative data on the incidence of domestic violence in the welfare caseload;

þcross-site studies comparing the different ways cooperation/good cause is handled, for example, in county-run States versus State-run, where the child support enforcement agency will conduct the determinations, where there will be several agencies conducting screenings; where States screen cases for domestic violence such as Washington State;

þfollow up to Kathyrn Edin research--what are the rates of and reasons for "noncooperation"? (Reasons for insufficient information in naming noncustodial parent, visitation/custody concerns, people wanting to stay out of the system, people afraid of losing in-kind child support they're receiving);

þresearch on domestic violence victims and their concerns about interacting with the child support and public assistance systems;

Potential areas for policy guidance

Attendees raised the following as areas where some sort of policy guidance would be helpful:

þwhether good cause claims are counted in paternity establishment denominator (pressure on States to reach 90% paternity establishment level).

þappeals process;

þpossible "full faith and credit" for good cause determinations? An examination of cooperation and good cause in the interstate arena. (Currently, no reciprocity for good cause even within States and among counties much less among States);

þ(note that attendees did not express a preference toward Federal regulation in this area, but rather, seemed to prefer guidance while allowing States to maintain flexibility in their approach to cooperation/good cause.

Examples of State Practices and Current Research:

Colorado

The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement has provided Colorado with funding as a part of its "model office" grant to examine its intake process regarding cooperation/good cause and domestic violence issues.The demonstration project began in the fall of 1996 and will continue until through the fall of 1997.Some of the project's preliminary findings are interesting.For example, there appears to be a high degree of subjectivity in the way in which good cause claims are granted.(Anecdotal evidence from around the country suggests that this is a common problem for States).Another interesting anecdotal finding from the Colorado project is that applicants who are more articulate, and better able to advocate for themselves, are more likely to be granted good cause than those who are not.

District of Columbia

Responding to a problem of applicants not appearing for interviews, the District of Columbia child support enforcement has begun providing applicants with bus tokens to make it easier for them to attend, and not to schedule interviews around the beginning or end of the month when applicant's public assistance checks had been spent or not received.

Unified Domestic Violence Court

The District of Columbia has recently begun to operate a unified court with a "master calendar" that processes both criminal and noncriminal cases in which domestic violence is the underlying issue.Such cases include civil protection orders, child support and paternity proceedings, and custody and visitation matters.This more holistic view of cases should help to provide judges with valuable information when deciding issues such as custody.In many States, different judges handle custody issues and domestic violence cases, and a judge may lack information that would help her decide to whom custody should be awarded.

The unified court has created a central intake unit where trained domestic violence workers conduct intake interviews, thus reducing the need for multiple interviews.All cases where domestic violence is the underlying issue are given a "V" file heading to alert future decisionmakers in the case.Judges and Hearing Commissioners hear the cases in a central courtroom.Once a civil protection order is issued, ancillary family matters are heard.To obtain more information about the District of Columbia's Domestic Violence Plan, call (202) 879-1700.

Illinois

The Illinois Department of domestic violence, the Illinois Department of Public Aid's (IDPA) Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE), and community organizations, joined a prevention of domestic violence coalition to periodically examine ways to assist clients who have been victims of domestic violence without putting them at further risk. The Department of Public Aid is also gathering input from prevention of domestic violence advocates on written child support information and outreach materials given to clients. IDPA funds 54 domestic violence prevention programs throughout Illinois, providing comprehensive, community-based services to victims of domestic violence and educational services to communities.Child Support Enforcement is working with Department staff to address the interests of these domestic violence prevention programs. For more information on Illinois' program contact (217) 524-9005.

Maryland--Anne Arundel County

Vesta Kimble, Deputy Director, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Department of Social Services (DSS), spoke of several innovations in place in her county. First, she described the mandatory domestic violence training that the Administration for Children and Families, is funding, and that Anne Arundel County has contracted with the YWCA to provide. All Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services' frontline staff (including child support enforcement workers) are required to undergo three days of training on domestic violence: the psychology of the battering relationship, why victims stay with their batterers, the impact of domestic violence on children, and the court process, including civil protection orders. Staff attend court sessions and have an opportunity to examine civil and temporary protection order forms. The pilot program includes the development of a video-based training module that will be used to train staff in the future. The training is one of the first in the country to formally train public assistance and child support enforcement workers on domestic violence. CNN recently learned of the training program and has prepared a television segment on it.

Co-location of services

Anne Arundel County has also co-located child care, a civil advocate, a public health nurse, and male counselors in the same building as the DSS. Workers became aware that many applicants for public assistance often bring their children to intake interviews but are then reluctant to discuss domestic abuse. Leaving the children at home is often not an option because the women lack child care. The county therefore established on-site supervised child care for children up to age 8 where parents who are on-site at DSS can leave their children. The YWCA has also co-located a civil advocate in the same building as the DSS to whom DSS workers can escort individuals who raise the issue of domestic violence. The civil advocate can assist the women in completing the paperwork for ex parte and civil protection orders. A public health nurse is located on-site andprovides immunizations to children free of charge if parents bring their children's immunization records. Male counselors are available on site to discuss issues of concern to fathers, and even to provide informal supervised visitation sites for fathers with their children while the mothers are attending GED classes or other services at DSS.

Help Eliminate Lifetime Poverty (HELP)/Welfare Avoidance Grants (WAGs)

Maryland has also developed a program to assist applicants for welfare by allowing them to obtain several months of benefits at one time. This has recently helped a battered woman to flee her batterer and pay for the security deposit and first month's rent on her own apartment, and has been used for other individuals to help repair or buy cars so that they will have transportation to go to work. Because each of the month's worth of benefits counts towards the lifetime benefit limit, the Job Center staff at DSS conduct a "risk assessment" to determine whether the participant is a good risk for the program, or whether participating in it will merely mean that she reaches her lifetime limit more quickly.

Screening for Domestic Violence

Maryland is one of the States that has chosen to adopt the optional "Wellstone/Murray" Family Violence section of the PRWORA. It is relevant for our discussion here insofar as it relates to both domestic violence and that intake process. The Wellstone/Murray provision is named for the two Senators who sponsored it. (It is also called the "Family Violence Option" and "Family Violence Amendment", the latter term being misleading as it is not an amendment at all but was contained in the PRWORA that President Clinton signed into law in August, 1996). It is contained in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) section (Title I) of the PRWORA, at õ 402(a)(7). The section gives States the option of certifying that it has established and is enforcing standards and procedures to screen and identify individuals receiving public assistance with a history of domestic violence while maintaining their confidentiality, and refer such individuals to counseling and supportive services, and waive, pursuant to a determination of good cause, program requirements such as time limits, and child support enforcement cooperation requirements.

It should be noted that the forum did not discuss this provision of the new law in detail, because other fora have already addressed some of the issues the Wellstone/Murray provision raises in detail. [ For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services convened a discussion in October, 1996, with many domestic violence advocates where the Wellstone/Murray provision was discussed at length.]

Maryland has three components to its domestic violence screening program: 1) screening; 2) identification; and 3) referral. Please note that there is disagreement even within the domestic violence community about "universal screening" for domestic violence and this report will not address that discussion. Maryland has chosen to define "screening" as allowing its caseworkers to use the following methods, among others: 1) begin a discussion about domestic violence in general, that it is a common problem, etc.,2) asking applicants/recipients for services about bruises or other visible injuries; and 3) look for indications that the applicant's partner is abusive or overly controlling, for example, if the applicant is prohibited from working outside the home or from seeing family or friends.

If the caseworker suspects that domestic violence may be a factor in an applicant's life, but the applicant/recipient has not explicitly mentioned it, when the caseworker is completing information about the applicant the caseworker can indicate that domestic violence is suspected in a data base by entering a "B". If the caseworker conducts a screening but finds no domestic violence the caseworker can enter an "A" for "screened" into the data base; and if the applicant for services acknowledges domestic violence in their life, the caseworker enters a "C" into the data base.

All applicants/recipients for services who have been identified as either acknowledged or suspected domestic violence victims will be informed of resources available to help them. Anne Arundel County is in the process of developing an informational videotape that will address safety planning and legal remedies. Caseworkers may also distribute cards with the domestic violence hotline number on it, and/or distribute copies of a brochure entitled "When Your Home just Isn't Safe", that the Anne Arundel County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council has developed. Or, if emergency services are warranted, the caseworker can escort the applicant/recipient to the nurse, or in Glen Burnie, Maryland, to the civil advocate to fill out court documents. For more information regarding the Anne Arundel County, Maryland procedures above, contact the Department of Social Services, (410) 269-4600.

Massachusetts

Statewide Registry of Protection Orders

Massachusetts has established a domestic violence order (civil protection order and temporary protection order) database. The State is developing a system to match outstanding child support arrears with cases where there is also a restraining order in place, to provide the State with information about cases that probably require additional safety planning.

University of Massachusetts, Boston Study

In 1992, Governor William Weld established a State Commission on domestic violence. In 1996, the commission issued a report examining the impact of domestic violence on children and recommending the creation of integrated community networks to serve children whose mothers had been battered. As Massachusetts began State plans for welfare reform, the Governor's commission approached researchers at the McCormack Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, to survey a representative sample of the Transitional Aid to Families With Dependent Children (TAFDC) caseload to learnthe incidence of domestic violence among those eligible for welfare in Massachusetts. Researchers interviewed 734 women eligible for TAFDC in Massachusetts, and found that almost 20% of the women had experienced abuse in the past year. [ See, "Safely Toward Self-Sufficiency, Battered Women's Path Through Welfare Reform", A Report by the AFDC Working Group of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Domestic Violence, February, 1997.] The findings of the survey are contained in a recently issued report entitled, "In Harm's way? Domestic Violence, AFDC Receipt and Welfare Reform in Massachusetts". For information on the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Domestic Violence, or to obtain a companion report to the University of Massachusetts study, entitled, "Safely Toward Self-Sufficiency, Battered Women's Path Through Welfare Reform", (1997), contact, Marie Kenny, Executive Director, Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Domestic Violence, (617) 727-2065 x386.

Washington

Address Confidentiality Program

Margaret McKinney, Director, Washington State Address Confidentiality Program (ACP) explained how the program functions. Washington established the ACP by law in 1991 and the Secretary of State's office manages it. The goal of the ACP is to help victims of domestic violence keep their whereabouts unknown to batterers.

There is no fee for participating in the ACP, and no corroborative evidence of domestic violence required of women wishing to participate in it. For the program to work however, the participants must relocate, as the ACP cannot shield information about old addresses in new State records, only new ones. Participants in the ACP are provided substitute addresses with street address, an ACP identification code, a post office box, a city in Washington State, and a zip code, that has no correlation with actual addresses. Participants are also provided with ACP identification cards that they can use when, for example, applying for driver's licenses, or child support. The program serves as a mail sorting agency. It accepts the first class mail of participants and forwards it to their actual locations. For obvious safety reasons, the ACP will not accept packages.

The cost to the State of the program is about $160 per participant per year, and there are currently about 1,000 participants. Ms. McKinney noted that she is legally authorized to accept service of process for participants of the program and such service is considered as good as personal service of process upon the program participant. Federal agencies and private companies do not have to accept the substitute address, but Ms. Mckinney noted that they often do. The ACP is generally prohibited from releasing information about participants, with one exception to that prohibition being that the participant is a criminal parolee. Ms. McKinney emphasized that she views the program as one piece of a program to help domestic violence victims work to escape their abusers, to be combined with other forms of safety planning and counseling from other sources. She noted that she encourages other States to adopt programs similar to the ACP. For additional information about the Washington State Address Confidentiality Program call Margaret McKinney at (360) 586-4386.

ENDNOTES

1. See Browne, A., When Battered Women Kill, 1987.

2. See section 333 of PRWORA.

3. The terms "IV-A" and "IV-D" refer to sections of the Social Security Act that provide statutory authority for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (formerly known as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program) and the Child Support Enforcement program, respectively.

4. See 45 CFR 232.42. After enactment of PRWORA, States may define what constitutes "good cause."

5. See Title I, section 408(a)(2) of PRWORA.

6. See Title I, section 409(a)(5) of PRWORA.

7. See Bassuk, Ellen L. and Weinreb, Linda F., et. al., "The Characteristics and Needs of Sheltered Homeless and Low-Income Housed Mothers," Journal of the American Medical Association, August 28, 1996, Vol. 276, No. 8, which shows high prevalence of domestic violence among poor and homeless women.

8. See Report of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, "In Harm's Way? Domestic Violence, AFDC Receipt, and Welfare Reform in Massachusetts," February 1997, which shows 19.5% of 734 women who received Transitional Aid from the State had been abused in the past year by an intimate partner.

9. For example, in October of 1996 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services met with advocates interested domestic violence to discuss issues such as the Wellstone/Murray provision.

10. See Report of the AFDC Working Group of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Domestic Violence, "Safely Toward Self-Sufficiency, Battered Women's path Through Welfare Reform," February, 1997.

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