This 12-month grant responded to 2003 Priority Area 2: Encouraging new ways to approach unwed parents to emphasize the importance of healthy marriage to a child’s well-being. “Family Connections in Alabama” (FCA) piloted marriage education for low-resource parents and to promote family and relationship strength. The Alabama Children’s Trust Fund (CTF), in partnership with Auburn University’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies, and with the support of the Alabama Department of Human Resources and the Alabama Office of Child Support, launched the FCA project through four community pilot sites.

The project tested a curriculum newly developed by Michigan State University Extension specifically for the target audience, based on studies of fragile families and the barriers to family stability entitled, “Caring for My Family.” Topics included: the importance of family stability and the benefits of healthy couple and married relationships, definitions of healthy and unhealthy relationships, self-care, communication skills in relationships, co-parenting skills, and the importance of fathers, financial management, goal setting and decision-making.

The FCA project was a collaboration of several public and private agencies and organizations, both at the State and local levels. The Education programs (included 6-10 sessions with a minimum of 10 lessons) were delivered through agencies that already were providing family services to the project target populations.

Goals for the project centered on strength-building in individual, couple, and family functioning. Both the program implementation process and the receptivity of the participants and the facilitators to the program were also of interest and an important part of the program evaluation study.

Project Findings (from the final Report)

The project targeted low-resource, non-married couples who were either expecting a child or had a child under age 3 (i.e., fragile families): 162 individuals participated in the program; 126 women, 36 men. Fifty participants attended as a couple; 90 attended without their partner (i.e., partner could not attend); 22 attended singly (i.e., had a strong interest in the program, but were not currently in a couple relationship). Completion rates were high, with only 14% attrition. Pre- and post-program questionnaires were returned for 138 participants who completed at least 10 lessons. Participants were primarily African-American (64%) and low-income. The vast majority had a high school education or less (77.5%) and reported a household income of $14,999 or less (74%). Participants were primarily in their mid-20’s and were no younger than 18.

Results

The evaluation questionnaire contained over 300 items adapted from social science measures that assess aspects of individual and couple functioning, including level of commitment, trust, happiness/satisfaction, and types of interaction patterns. Post-program questionnaires had questions on the quality of the program.

Analyses revealed statistically significant increases in:

• Individual empowerment. This included recognition of individual strengths, ability to cope with stress, recognition of unhealthy and unsafe relationships, ability to take action in unsafe relationships, individual problem-solving skills.
• Couple quality. Increases in reported level of trust in the relationship, level of happiness in the relationship, and ability to problem-solve as a team.
• Mother’s support of the father (i.e., better co-parenting attitudes and practices).

Statistically significant decreases were found in:

• Individual distress level
• Level of verbal aggression in the relationship (both their own and their partner’s)

Quality of the Program

• Participants rated the facilitators’ work and the quality of the program very high.
• The vast majority of participants strongly agreed that they would recommend the program to others they know.
• Results of this pilot project and evaluation study are promising and suggest that offering marriage education services to low-resource parents is beneficial. Ratings of the program and curriculum by participants and facilitators were consistently high. The program impact as measured did not differ by gender, or by whether participants came as a couple or attended without their partner.

Lessons Learned

• It was clear that recruitment and retention were successful because of the history participants had with other programs offered by these family service agencies. The goal of 120 participants was exceeded (162 participants; 138 completing.) In addition, agencies had in place other supports crucial for successful recruitment and retention (e.g., childcare, transportation assistance.)
• Although at first, many facilitators were apprehensive about teaching relationship skills and talking about healthy marriages, they quickly saw the intense interest among participants. This interest provided facilitators a strong motivation in providing the program.
• Recruiting fathers was especially challenging; but most facilitators felt that it was more a matter of scheduling difficulties rather than disinterest and noted that future recruitment efforts should target fathers first. Male facilitators had no difficulty recruiting the mothers once the father was “on board,” but it did not seem to work in reverse.
• Because participants were in very different couple contexts (e.g., married, non-married, attend with partner, attend without partner, have no partner), it was often difficult to manage the logistics of class discussion and activities.
• It may be unrealistic to expect significant behavioral and relational quality changes after participation in a short-term education program. Follow-up data collection is essential for demonstrating sustained and/or emerging impact.

Recommendations

Facilitators agreed on the following recommendations for future work:

• Utilize a team of male/female facilitators
• Utilize male facilitators as main recruiters for the program and target fathers
• Invest in training and training updates
• Build on community collaboration for recruitment and referral
• Think in terms of adding marriage education to an umbrella of services (can be embedded in other curricula or separate – but linked to other programs)
• Be prepared to address co-parenting relationships with ex-partners and adjustment to parenting, along with couple relationship issues
• Group similar couple contexts
• Offer participants long term education programs (12-18 months) (either meeting periodically or intensive initial sessions and then periodic boosters)
• Plan for documenting, evaluating, and following-up

This two-year grant responded to 2003 Priority 4: "Expanding Use of Automation Tools and Best Practices." The Project was designed to utilize Web site technology to increase customer services by providing parents, employers and case workers the ability to access case data and input data on-line. Colorado CSE intended to launch an interactive, e-commerce Web site that would provide 24-hour access to case status and payment information for parents, both in-state and interstate caseworkers, and employers. It was anticipated that by doing so, Colorado CSE would see significant improvement in its ability to provide better and more current information to its key stakeholders.

By the end of the grant period, this purpose was realized by providing real-time case and financial information to Web-registered parents with child support cases and registered workers from other States.

Project Findings (From the Final Report):

The project met the following three goals:

1. Rapidly meet common user needs: With the child support information and case-specific detail now available, many common user needs have been met. At the end of the grant period there were over 16,000 registered users on the Web site. Registered users are made up of about 78 percent custodial parents, 22 percent noncustodial parents and 2 percent out-of-State IV-D workers. It is also interesting to note that based on a recent analysis, 15.5 percent of the cases are for registrants residing outside of Colorado.

   Finding: Publications and forms are being accessed regularly. For example, the Colorado general CSE brochure was accessed an average of 950 times per month for the period of October-December, 2004. The application for Direct Deposit of child support payment was accessed an average of 1450 times per month for the same period. In December 2004 there were over 3,600 user requests for a printable version of case payment histories. Previously, all of these could have resulted in a request to a Customer Service agent to print and mail these materials.

   Moreover, registered parents in general have made extensive use of the payment detail and payment history pages on the Web site. In December, 2004 there were over 29,000 hits on the payment history page.

2. Answer frequently asked questions: On the Web site, for example, there is a section for Frequently Asked Questions, with answers to 19 different topic areas. The FAQs cover all of the primary areas of child support enforcement in Colorado.

   Findings: This has proven to be a great resource for information and it is a common occurrence for the CSE receptionist to direct callers to the Web site when they call asking questions about the program. This redirection has saved valuable staff time and has allowed for consistent answers to the questions asked.

3. Demonstrate proof-of-concept: The project was successful in meeting user needs.

   Findings: With visits to the site averaging 2,250 per weekday, clearly the Colorado CSE Program has gone well beyond a 'proof-of-concept' scenario to a well-used production CSE Web application. A check on the volume of hits asking solely for specific case financial history for the period of October-December, 2004 shows an average of over 29,000 hits per month. Analysis shortly after the project ended revealed this number growing by more than 10 percent per month.

Lessons Learned:

• The project did not see an increase/decrease in customer support calls to the SDU or in the volume of calls to the IVR for use in comparing "before implementation" versus "after implementation" of the customer service Web site. However, while the IVR inquiries were relatively flat, information requests continued to rise on the Web site.
• County workers did not believe that the Web site had a noticeable impact on their workloads. This could be due to the fact that county workers in general often feel overwhelmed in keeping up with their workloads, and the most difficult issues they deal with cannot be solved by the Web. However, one major accomplishment has involved putting procedures and desk aids on the Web site for in-state users to access. It is believed that in the long-term this will be a huge benefit to county caseworkers as it will allow for quick turnaround of changes in the procedures and/or just in time procedural information.
• Open source software is a viable alternative for Web software. It not only comes at a low cost, but is also reliable, stable, scalable, and performs well. Having begun this project using Oracle Web software, the Colorado project team has a good understanding of the benefits of open source software over proprietary software packages. This software has also been successfully implemented by Arizona.
• An executive steering committee is very important to the overall success of the project. Another group that made a huge difference in the outcome of the project was the application Web workgroup. This was a group of CSE staff made up of members from each section in the Colorado Division of CSE. This group was instrumental in helping to produce an end result that represented the child support program and worked well for the public.
• After the initial prototype was built, Colorado conducted a user usability test. There were four user testers participating. These users were taken through a scripted test and the sessions were videotaped. The usability test proved to be invaluable. Colorado would recommend this process to anyone building a new Web application.

• The approach used to pull together content about the Colorado child support program was the following: existing documentation on the child support program was reviewed and the primary topic areas were determined. Various topic areas were divided among small sub-groups of the Web workgroup and each group was asked to put together content for each topic. Sub-groups were encouraged to use existing material they could find, but were also charged with the task of limiting the size of each explanation for the Web. This content was then compiled together into one document where it was re-worked by the project manager in an effort to give it one voice.

  This was a difficult task, and the success of finding one voice for all of the different topics could be questioned. It would probably have been better to hire an outside content editor, if resources were available. This approach did allow Colorado to gather a large amount of content in a relatively short period of time. Colorado also used the same approach in compiling the 'Frequently Asked Questions' for the site.

• A very simple user site survey was made available for the first 12 months of production. This proved to be invaluable in getting user feedback to determine what worked well and what did not. It also gave insights into additional features that users wanted on the site. Even a simple survey asking general questions about navigation on the site and allowing for users' comments produced a wealth of information, particularly during the first 6 months.
• One of the biggest challenges faced was when registrations for the site began growing faster than expected. This increase often came from issues that ultimately had a good result. The registration process required that the user give their social security number (SSN) which then had to be matched to the SSN kept in the primary Child Support System (ACSES). When people could not register because Colorado did not have their SSN entered into ACSES they often called and their SSN was than entered into the system. This was a big plus, as the SSN is the key to many functions, such as locating individuals. Colorado also had numerous instances where they mailed the user's password by UPS mail (Colorado chose this route for security reasons) and it was returned because Colorado had the wrong address in ACSES. Once again, Colorado was able to contact these people and get a current address in the system. Both of these scenarios created work, but resulted in better information in the system.
• Colorado also learned that there is significant interest in real-time access to Colorado State case and financial information by other State CSE workers. By the end of the grant period Colorado had over 300 other State workers registered for this access.
• As time progressed, there was a need to appoint a technical resource person to be available for people with registration and log-in issues that are primarily technical in nature. This technical resource person came from existing staff. This responsibility has been rotated to various members of the Web team from month to month.

This 17-month project addressed 2003 Grant Priority Area 3: Increasing Medical Coverage for Children in IV-D Cases. This project developed and implemented procedures to initiate enforcement of custodial parent (CP) medical support obligations in appropriate cases. The purpose of the project was to increase the number of children in IV-D cases with medical coverage.

Prior to receiving this grant, the Montana CSED only enforced medical support obligations against noncustodial parents (NCPs), leaving a gap in children’s coverage for cases in which insurance was not available to those NCPs. While Montana laws allowed for the enforcement of medical support obligations against the CP as well as the NCP, the CSED had not previously implemented the CP side of this enforcement authority. The project focused on system enhancements and procedural changes needed to implement CP medical enforcement.

The system design built on the existing NCP-only design, creating new elements as needed to support project field requirements. To accomplish the technical aspects of the project, the CSED contracted with a vendor to perform all system design and development tasks.

Project Findings

Montana established six evaluation measures for the project, as follows. Of the total number of cases with medical support ordered, the percentage of those cases in which health insurance coverage was currently in effect increased from 27 percent to 30 percent. The State also looked at whether the parent with health insurance credit in the guidelines was the parent who provided coverage under the NMSN. This percentage increased slightly, from 72 percent to 74 percent and was seen to indicate the beginning of a shift toward fairer medical enforcement, where the parent who obtained a more favorable support amount based on payment of premiums was the parent whose obligation was enforced.

The third measure looked at the percentage of cases in which the parent with existing coverage was the parent who provided coverage under the NMSN. Under this measure, there was an insignificant improvement from 96 percent to 97 percent. The fourth measure looked at the percentage of cases where the NMSN resulted in coverage. This number rose quite significantly in the first six months of implementation, from 6 percent to 28 percent.

The project also looked at the number of cases closed by the CP as a result of medical enforcement against the CP. While only 9 cases were closed by CPs during the six months of the study, approximately 200 medical support enforcement actions against CPs were initiated each month. So the number of case closures was relatively small. Although there was some resistance initially on the part of some CPs, they tended to understand after it was explained to them. Montana had a few CPs request closure of their case, but it was minimal. Resistance from a CP did not impact the decision for picking the appropriate enforcement parent. Regarding cash medical to reimburse CP premiums or to pay for incidental costs not covered by insurance, Montana's guidelines assess each parent a percentage of responsibility for unreimbursed medical expenses.

Finally, the CSED estimated the total Medicaid savings for the period of January through July 2004 to be $1,743,858. Based on earlier figures, the CSED estimated that Montana realized an additional $93,273 per month in Medicaid cost avoidance since the beginning of the effort to enforce CP medical support.

Update as of April 2007

Montana stayed committed to the policies and procedures developed as part of this grant, and continued its integrated approach to medical support enforcement activities, which included enforcement against CPs in appropriate cases. Since the conclusion of the grant, the CSED offered periodic training to staff on the medical support enforcement procedures and developed flow charts and Frequently Asked Questions to assist workers.

The CSED's ultimate goal with this project was to increase the number of children with health insurance coverage. In January 2004, prior to the start of this grant, the CSED only had 9,008 children documented in its automated system as having health insurance coverage available. At the end of FY 2006, the CSED's system reflected that 14,583 children had health insurance coverage available. This was a 61 percent increase. The State continued to see increases but at a lower rate as the increase in children covered has stabilized (for example, in FY 2006, the CSED increased the number of children covered by insurance by almost 3.5 percent).

In addition, as reported on the CSED's OCSE-157 Report for FY 2006, 47 percent of the CSED's cases in which medical support was ordered had health insurance provided. While the NCP is still the primary provider of health insurance coverage, since implementation of enforcement against CPs, coverage provided by CPs now accounts for almost 30 percent of the health insurance policies. Finally, as a result of the CSED's efforts in the medical enforcement area, the CSED believed that the Montana Medicaid program may realize annual savings between $2 and $3 million.

Lessons Learned

• Front-line workers are key. One of the biggest challenges faced during the course of this project was to get "buy-in" from field staff since medical enforcement results were harder to visualize by field staff than collections of money for child support. In an effort to obtain "buy-in," the field procedures for medical enforcement and new screens designed for its automated system were modeled after the already familiar procedures and screens used for income withholding. In addition, the CSED also introduced features in the new medical enforcement screens to appeal to field staff, such as the ability to generate and re-generate documents directly from these screens rather than going through the normal automated document generation process.
• Reduce Complexity. Because NCP medical enforcement was already more complicated than financial enforcement, adding CP enforcement had the potential to increase complexity to an unacceptable level. In a number of areas it became more important to provide simple procedures that worked in most situations, than to require more complicated, always-perfect processes. Some of the areas CSED found it necessary to simplify right away were determination of reasonable cost; application of state NMSN requirements; and identification of employers that did not offer dependent coverage to any employees.
• Modification is huge (successful CP medical enforcement depends on a speedy medical modification process). Practical review and adjustment (modification) procedures are essential for implementing CP enforcement. The availability of a CP enforcement process alone did not lead to increased coverage. The support order must contain - or must be quickly modifiable to contain - a health insurance obligation for the CP as well as the NCP.
• CP employers. The identity of the CP’s employer is an essential data element in the medical enforcement process and must be accommodated by the automated system. During the detailed design, CSED inserted a requirement for the CP’s employer to be added to the database when the NMSN was issued for a CP. This was a paradigm change for the automated system.
• Continued support and training for medical workers must be ongoing. Program resources are needed beyond the initial design and implementation of CP medical enforcement to provide internal support for medical casework on an ongoing basis. Some options considered for providing this support include a medical help desk or hot line for user questions; a centralized medical unit that performs special tasks (e.g., database cleanup; problem identification; etc); or some other direct support to the worker. Also, training must be an ongoing part of CP and NCP medical support enforcement. Training sessions, delivered in a variety of formats, (rather than one-time training) are more effective given the complexity of CP medical support enforcement and allow workers to raise actual case issues.
• System enhancements must consider medical requirements on an ongoing basis. All changes in the automated system must be reviewed to determine how the change will affect, or be affected by, medical processing components. Medical processing has to be a basic and necessary system component.
• Changing the culture will take longer than changing the rules. Although CP medical enforcement may be integrated into the caseload within 12 to 18 months, it will probably take much longer to see a shift in the basic assumptions about child support. The old belief that child support means financial support provided by the NCP is still the underlying philosophy in CSED casework. Workers will need to accumulate a body of positive experience with CP enforcement over time to get their buy-in. Also, new workers need to be taught from the beginning that "current support" means both financial and medical support, and that the CSED enforces both parents’ health insurance obligations.

This 17-month project addressed the 2000 Grant Priority Area 4: Improving Parental Responsibility and Services. It was designed to deal with noncustodial parents (NCPs) who failed to comply with their child support obligations, primarily as a result of a severe substance abuse addiction. The program goal was to increase the amount of collections and frequency of payments.

Partners included the Court, the District Attorney’s Office, the Clerk’s Office, the Detention Center, and the Nevada Employment Assistance Program. The emphasis of the Court wasn’t immediately on payment and arrears amounts, but rather, on sobriety, compliance with treatment, and follow-through on obligations. This was very different from the regular child support calendar since the focus was longer-term and geared toward wellness. The court team played a critical role in motivating obligors to progress in the program. Each member of the team, including the Deputy District Attorney (DDA) was responsible for holding the obligor accountable for his or her behavior and for providing positive affirmation for achievements.

Participants in the program were not expected to work (if unemployed) until they were through the first phase of treatment. The goal in this phase was to detoxify from substances. The majority of participants had been using drugs 15 – 20 years and didn’t have much experience with sobriety. During the second phase of treatment, obligors were expected to begin job readiness and job search activities. Phases 3 and 4 of treatment focused on recovery, skills development, and processing and practicing skills.

The comprehensive program provided judicial supervision and treatment focusing on obligor sobriety and accountability, and utilized sanctions and incentives to help individuals take control of their own recovery. Eligible NCPs, who admitted to a substance abuse problem, were referred to the program by the Child Support Hearing Master. The individual had to sign a consent agreement to release treatment information to the court. Also, the participant and the Hearing Master signed a contract which described the treatment regimen and consequences for non-performance, including the possibility of being held in contempt of court. The program provided ongoing monitoring and supervision including regular drug testing and appearances in court. Referral services consisted of intensive mental health and substance abuse counseling, vocational assessment, job assistance, and aftercare support. To graduate, the participant had to meet all treatment and financial obligations, had to be working, and be drug-free for 6 months.

Findings/Lessons Learned

• Bench warrants for failure to appear in court are an integral part of a Drug Court Program. They are a mechanism used to quickly intervene when the participant has relapsed into drug use. To expedite issuance of bench warrants, the Clerk’s Office agreed to flag and forward bench warrants within 24 hours. The presiding judge agreed to sign the bench warrants and return them to the Clerk’s Office within the same day. And, the DA’s Office agreed to pick up and process Drug Court bench warrants (enter them into the computer system) also within 24 hours of receipt.
• Questioning by the Hearing Master needed to be restructured to elicit an admission of substance abuse as the main reason why the obligor was not working and not paying child support. Asking the obligor if he/she had a problem with substance abuse usually elicited the answer “No, I don’t have a problem with substances.” Upon doing a clinical screening on some of these people, it was found that the majority had an extensive history of substance abuse and that they just didn’t consider it a problem. Also, it is recommended to check their criminal history since it is a good indicator of substance abuse problems and also may rule out someone due to history of domestic violence.
• Sanctions and incentives were helpful tools used by the Court to help modify negative behaviors and reward positive behaviors. Non-compliance with the treatment program could result in more frequent Court appearances, more intensive treatment programming, writing assignments (“I will not miss groups” written 500 times and brought to the next Court date), community services hours, and jail time for contempt of court. Achievements were rewarded with a temporary stay on arrears payments, purging of contempt time on the books, positive acclamation by peers and the Drug Court Team, and certificates of achievement presented by the Hearing Master on advancement to the next phase in treatment. And, graduation from the program earned the participant a graduation certificate, a Drug Court T-shirt and poster, and their case taken off the calendar.

Results

Out of 23 people who received some service under the grant, a total of 15 clients had at least 2 months or more of treatment. The data showed that these clients were able to have increased earnings and increased the total amounts paid for child support and arrears while participating in the program compared to 12 months prior to the program.

The Court continued to fund the Child Support Drug Court Program beyond the grant period because of its positive results. (Also, these activities are not eligible for title IV-D program Federal financial participation.) As of March 2003, while the number of participants remained small (averaging about 16), the majority realized significant increases in child support payments (43 percent – 75 percent). Graduates from the program had a 24-percent compliance rate for one year prior to admission, a 72-percent compliance rate while in the program, and a 75-percent compliance rate post program.

(NOTE: Includes Findings from the Final Report)

Project Plan

This grant responded to 2003 Priority Area 4: Expanding Customer Service through Agency-Initiated Contact. A large percentage of delays in children receiving their child support were due to missed appointments, forgotten hearings, and delinquent support payments. This project planned to use automated dialing as a non-confrontational means of reminding both custodial and non-custodial parents of upcoming appointments and payments due without the involvement of CSE staff. The project sought to reduce the number of missed appointments and delinquency payments, and increase payments due on support orders and the rate of collections among the approximately 44,000 clients served in the State.

The project used a "PhoneTree 3500" automated dialing product based out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The automated dialing system has three components: 1) Non-custodial parents were called and reminded of upcoming appointments with the child support agency and court hearings up to three days in advance; 2) Non-custodial parents were called with a reminder that the first payment will be due on new child support order, and on an initial delinquency on a new order; and 3) Custodial parents were called and reminded of upcoming appointments with the child support agency.

Project Findings

The project monitored call volume through the use of North Carolina's Data Warehouse System, and showed an average of 1,877 calls per day or 59,345 calls per month. Between August 2003 and November 2004, statewide appointment attendance showed an increase from 56% to 61%. Statewide hearing attendance rose slightly, from 85% to 87%, for the same period. Between August 2003 and December 2004, delinquencies on new orders that were resolved within 30 days rose from 31% to 38%. The project also received positive feedback from local offices regarding increased court appearances by non-custodial parents.

The project did not evaluate cost-effectiveness; however, the automated dialing product's cost was exceeded by the increased amount of collections brought in. The software cost only approximately $16,000, yet there were unforeseen increased costs to the State due to the need for additional staff at the customer service center to answer follow-up phone calls generated by the automated calls.

The project plans to continue the established automated dialing protocol, and is proposing the following enhancements: 1) Calls to all non-custodial parents with cases in delinquency/enforcement status for more than 60 days; 2) Calls to all non-custodial parents with cases in delinquency/locate status for more than 60 days; and 3) Calls to custodial parents with cases in locate status for more than 60 days to obtain updated information about the non-custodial parent.

Lessons Learned

Best practices and lessons learned by the project include: prepare the database with as many updated and missing phone numbers as possible; have procedures in place to correct incorrect phone numbers in the database; eliminate unnecessary data from the batch files that are downloaded to the automated dialer, i.e., social security number and date of birth are not needed for reminder calls; save data for six months on CDs.

Note: The May 2004 Child Support Report contains an article on the NC Automated System - http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/2004/csr/csr0406.html

This 17-month grant responded to 2001 Priority Area 3: “Improving Child Support Orders, Collections, and Job Program Referrals for Low-Income Fathers.” The State of Washington’s Division of Child Support (DCS) project was to study outreach strategies for incarcerated noncustodial parents (NCPs). DCS partnered with two other agencies, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) and the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD). DCS proposed to increase child support payments from a group which traditionally did not pay child support regularly, if at all. ESD wanted to help NCPs who had recently been released from prison become employed as quickly as possible, and DOC wanted to decrease recidivism rates.

Project partners believed that inappropriately high child support orders and excessive child support arrearages might combine to create a disincentive to paying support upon the NCPs’ release from prison. That, combined with employment barriers commonly faced by recently released inmates, might lead to higher rates of recidivism. In an effort to improve child support payment rates and employment, the project partners studied two outreach methods, low effort and high effort (described below), to determine if either produced significantly different results.

Project Findings (from the Final Report)

A key component of both outreach methods was the child support information video created specifically for this project. Project partners designed the child support information video to achieve two purposes -- to answer common questions that inmates have about child support issues, and to invite inmates to work with DCS and ESD to assist with their child support cases and with obtaining employment upon release.

In addition to using the video in the Project, the partners shared it with other States’ child support programs. Project staff received very positive feedback from some States. For example, several counties in California requested a copy for use in their outreach programs.

DOC showed the video to approximately 10,000 inmates during the project period. DOC estimates that about 30 percent of incarcerated individuals have children. During the project (June 2001 through December 2002), DCS received 1,531 contact letters from inmates who had seen the information video.

Low-Effort Outreach

Under the low-effort outreach approach, DCS reviewed the child support cases of all 1,531 NCPs and sent each NCP a response with information about his or her individual situation with recommendations for actions to pursue, and the forms necessary to initiate the recommendation. DCS generally recommended that the NCPs seek to modify their child support obligations prospectively, to request a hearing on an administrative notice, or to request that DCS write off arrearages owed to the State of Washington. ESD also reviewed the inmate’s situation and sent the NCP information and advice regarding employment options upon release.

High-Effort Outreach

The high-effort outreach method added an in-person meeting with the incarcerated NCP. Each month during the project, DCS selected, based on release date and particular child support issues, a group of NCPs for a one-on-one meeting. Staff from DCS and EDS met with the inmates to explain their child support cases and the options available for their individual situations. DCS also explained how to complete the necessary forms and other information required for initiating the recommended changes to the NCPs’ child support cases. ESD staff met with the NCPs to explain what employment resources were available to them upon release and to provide them with specific information about whom to contact at an employment assistance agency.

Results

Of the 1,531 incarcerated NCPs in the project: 59 inmates had no child support case and 1,472 inmates contacted DCS. The number of inmates who initiated action was 525: 59 NCPs initiated under the low-effort method and 466 initiated under the high-effort method.

The results were mixed. The grant compared the NCPs’ responses to both outreach methods. For the low-effort outreach, about 34 percent of inmates responded, and for the high-effort method, about 64 percent responded. The impact on both arrears and order amount was greater (i.e., decreases in average arrears owed and decreases in monthly order amounts) for those NCPs who responded than the NCPs who did not respond. By contrast, the State noted more improvement in payment rates among NCPs who did not respond than those who did respond. The reason for this difference is unknown. Other unmeasured variables may have impacted the outcomes for this project, including the length of time to process an NCP request, whether the order met modification criteria, and whether or not the arrears were owed to the State of Washington and were eligible for write off.

Also, ESD was able to offer employment services only to a small number of recently released NCPs (13 in the low-effort group sample and 5 in the entire high-effort group). As the project progressed, Welfare-to-Work (WtW) agencies lost funding and were less able – sometimes unable to offer these services than originally anticipated in the project proposal. Those NCPs who received a WtW referral had more quarters of employment overall (average 1.09 quarters) than those NCPs who did not receive WtW services (average .41 quarters). However, there were too few NCPs who received WtW services to create a statistically significant population.

Lessons Learned/Recommendations

The differences between the high-effort group and low-effort group (and within those groups the NCPs who responded or didn’t respond) made it difficult to draw firm conclusions. In order to draw conclusions upon which reasonable decisions can be made, it was suggested that any further studies include a larger group of incarcerated NCPs and that their cases be studied for a longer period of time. Especially in a study of child support payment rates, the fact that inmates generally spend multiple years in prison makes it necessary to conduct a longer term study.

Project partners further recommend that other studies include collection of demographic data, such as work history, education, number of children in different families, and recidivism rates.

For States considering creating a new outreach program or modifying an existing program, the project revealed several factors that can contribute to the success of an outreach program:

• Establish a good working partnership between the child support agency and the corrections agency and other associated partners.
• Place outreach emphasis in an intake institution, if possible.
• Devote sufficient resources to the follow-up activities.
• Find ways to increase communication between NCP and child support staff, such as toll free telephone numbers or allowing the NCP to place collect calls to the child support agency.