This grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 1: Promoting Healthy Relationships for Unwed Couples to Improve Children's Financial and Medical Security. The grantee will collaborate with three medical institutions and two child support agencies to present information about paternity, child support, and healthy relationships to fragile families and other targeted, low-income, unmarried populations in trusted medical settings. The participating medical institutions will combine information on relationships, paternity, and child support with other educational material presented in "CenteringPregnancy," an established, group prenatal care program. The clinics are key providers of prenatal care for unmarried, low-income, minority parents in San Francisco and St. Louis. All three clinics maintain contact with parents after the birth of their babies offering the opportunity for effective long-term follow-up. They are also experimenting with group pediatric care formats using "CenteringParenting," which will provide another vehicle for delivering the "child support message." The child support agencies that serve these cities and targeted populations will participate by helping to train prenatal care staff about paternity and child support, making relevant presentations to parents at appropriate program sessions, and providing services to interested families.

The cross-site intervention will be subject to an evaluation aimed at documenting the impact of the enhanced "CenteringPregnancy" program on rates of paternity establishment, the use of the formal child support system, patterns of cohabitation and marriage, and the development of stable relationships that offer financial and medical security for vulnerable children. Outcomes for parental relationships include reduced couple conflict, increased parental contact and involvement, and a better understanding of healthy relationships. CPR will help publicize the project results to child support and prenatal care audiences throughout the nation and work with the Centering Pregnancy and Parenting Association to incorporate the "child support message" in the standard curriculum used in Centering programs. The project furthers the child support mission by creating effective collaborations between child support agencies and prenatal care programs that use sustained, group education formats with fragile families before and after the birth of their babies.

This grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 2: Improving Child Support by Encouraging Parents and CSE Agencies to Work Together for Better Case Management and Results. The Christian Community Council (CCC) of Albany, Louisiana operates a community outreach program that works with non-custodial parents who have not been meeting their child support obligations. Partners include the local Child Support Enforcement agency and the 21st Judicial District Court who work with project participants in a 10-week program to help them gain a better understanding of CSE and Court system policies, procedures, and expectations, find full-time employment, build positive relationships with their children and the custodial parent or guardian, and begin meeting their child support obligation voluntarily and consistently.

The "Fill the Gap Program" has been in operation since 2003 and has steadily grown. In 2005 it served 44 participants, and showed 75% of participants having made a child support payment in the previous six months of program participation. The grant will enable the "Fill the Gap Program" to expand services, implement more effective management, and increase their staff; it will also enable them to develop an online, secure database, program website, and program manual. This will allow the project to be duplicated in other Regions.

The project will utilize pre-/post-data collection to evaluate participants' confidence level in dealing with CSE and the Court, willingness to meet child support obligations, employment status and place of employment, contact with children, and perceptions of the program's effectiveness.

This grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 1: Promoting Healthy Relationships for Unwed Couples to Improve Children's Financial and Medical Security. The EFF is a an existing voluntary education and support program open to single parents living in Kent County, MI with a child two years-old or younger that provides parenting and other vital life skills information. Parents who are pregnant may volunteer to attend before the birth of their child and the program encourages the attendance of the biological father or any partner of the single parent who will be contributing significantly to raising the child. This grant will enable EFF to expand their provision of parenting and life skills information sessions, promotion of healthy relationships, and linking participants to community resources. The grant will also allow EFF to promote and provide mediation services for their target audience with the aim of improving children's financial and medical security, minimizing the need for adversarial proceedings, and minimizing the need to take formal or punitive actions to collect support.

The evaluation of the project has a 4-pronged approach consisting of: collection of program data, a pre-mediation participant questionnaire, a follow-up participant phone survey, and trend analysis of child support data.

This grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 2: Improving Child Support by Encouraging Parents and CSE Agencies to Work Together for Better Case Management and Results. The Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) will partner with the Department of Public Welfare (DPW) and Family Court to facilitate case management and referral to job training services in order to assist non-custodial parents with timely payment of their court-ordered child support obligations for their children who live in PHA apartments. DPW may also, with the written consent of the project participant's child's parent or guardian, suspend any actions or petitions to collect child support obligations and garnishment proceedings against wages and other money owed to the participant during their involvement in the program. Participants will be non-custodial parents owing back child-support payments who reside in PHA property and do not have a recent violent or drug-related felony conviction. The child's other parent must be a recipient of TANF or agree with the suspension of the child support order. Many NCPs cohabit with their partners in secret, fearful of eviction or paying higher rents if they are declared. Program participants will sign a program participation agreement and, if eligible, be included on a lease as co-tenant, as agreed to by the head of household.

The program participation agreement holds participants to pay all court-ordered child support obligations in a timely manner, comply with all PHA lease terms and rules, successfully complete job-training or job-preparedness offered in connection with the program within one year of program participation, and become gainfully employed on or before one year of the date of the participation agreement. Participants who do not comply with the participation agreement may be subject to termination of the program's benefits, removal or exclusion from PHA's property and lease, and release of stay action.

The program projects quarterly increases of 5% in withholding collections and 5% in automated enforcement collections. The University of Pennsylvania will conduct both process and outcome evaluations. The process evaluation will track demographic data on program participants, while the outcome evaluation will measure, among other results, current collections and arrears paid, reduction in TANF assistance, medical insurance paid resulting in reduction of dependence on Medicaid, and the program's completion rate and cost-effectiveness.

This grant responds to 2006 Priority Area 1: Promoting Healthy Relationships for Unwed Couples to Improve Children's Financial and Medical Security. The project is a collaboration between Family Service Association of San Antonio, Inc., Metropolitan Methodist Hospital, the Division for Families and Children of the Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG), and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio-School of Nursing. Estimating a recruitment of 300 low-income, unwed, pregnant couples a year, the project will test strategies of collaborative interventions designed to enhance the knowledge and understanding of unmarried, new parents concerning the importance and legal significance of paternity establishment, the legal rights and responsibilities they have as parents, and the value of family stability and healthy marriage to the well-being of their children. The goal of the project is to improve child support performance and outcomes for children and families by improving parenting, co-parenting skills, and encouraging healthy marriage.

The project's evaluative design employs random assignment. All 300 of the recruited couples will receive information, brochures, and videos from OAG regarding child support and healthy marriage. The experimental group of 150 of the recruited couples will receive these OAG materials and evidence-based curriculum education services via the "Parents as Teachers" parent education curriculum addressing pre- and early post-natal care, and the "Caring for My Family" co-parenting curriculum for post-natal care 3 to 8 months after the child's birth. The evaluation will measure and compare results for the couples that include improved financial and medical care child outcomes, increased understanding of the child support system and available community services, and an increased marriage rate.