Exhibits

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

I The Parents’ Fair Share Demonstration
II. An Overview of This Report and Its Central Findings

2 An Overview of Child Support Enforcement

• I. CSE Reform: A Middle-Class Paradigm
  II. The PFS Participants’ Experience of the IV-D System

3 An Overview of the PFS Intake Process

• I. Intensively Working a Random Sample of the CSE Caseload
  II. Screening Through Other Means for NCPs Appropriate for PFS

4 The Steps in the Enforcement Process

• I. Identifying Nonpaying NCPs
  • A. The Usual Methods Used to Identify Cases for Enforcement
    B. Special Methods Developed to Identify Cases for Possible PFS Referral
  II. Arranging Reviews of NCPs’ Status and Eligibility for PFS
  • A. Perceived Seriousness of the Review
    B. Case Reviewers and Associated Required Facilities, Paperwork, and Docket Space
    C. Requirements for Legally Sufficient Review Notice to NCPs
    D. Staff Needed to Represent the Agency
    E. Enforcement Expectations Triggered by the Choice of Forum
    F. Practices in the PFS Sites
  III. Getting NCPs to Appear at the Reviews
  • A. Appearance Rate at Reviews
    B. Difficulty of Imposing Sanctions for Nonappearance
    C. Other Features of the Intake Process
  IV. Using the Review to Assess NCPs’ Circumstances
  • A. Review Setting and Procedures
    B. Circumstances of NCPs Who Appear for Reviews
  V. Referring Eligible NCPs for PFS
  • A. Defining PFS Eligibility
    B. Referring NCPs to the Program
    C. Making Downward Modifications in the Child Support Obligation
  VI. Revising Local Enforcement Procedures to Make PFS Work Better:  Case Study of Montgomery County
  • A. Initial Plans for Identifying NCPs
    B. Redefining the Pool of Potential PFS Referrals
    C. Speeding Up the Hearing Process
    D. Increasing the Appearance Rate at Reviews

5 Summary of Lessons and Policy Implications

• I. Identifying Potential Referrals to PFS
  II. Locating NCPs
  III. Gaining NCPs’ Cooperation
  • A. Probability of Sanctions
    B. Fine-Tuning the Message
  IV. The Effects on IV-D Agencies of Running PFS with an Enhanced CSE Component
  V. Conclusion

References

This report is based on research conducted for the Parents’ Fair Share Demonstration, a national demonstration project that combines job training and placement, peer support groups, and other services with the goal of increasing the earnings and child support payments of unemployed noncustodial parents (usually fathers) of children on welfare, improving their parenting and communication skills, and providing an opportunity for them to participate more fully and effectively in the lives of their children.

The findings and conclusions presented in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders or the participating states. Interested readers may wish to contact the states for more information on the program. The sites and states in the Parents’ Fair Share Demonstration are Los Angeles Parents’ Fair Share Project, Los Angeles County (Los Angeles), California; Duval County Parents’ Fair Share Project, Duval County (Jacksonville), Florida; MassJOBS Parents’ Fair Share Project, Hampden County (Springfield), Massachusetts; Kent County Parents’ Fair Share Project, Kent County (Grand Rapids), Michigan; Operation Fatherhood, Mercer County (Trenton), New Jersey; Options for Parental Training and Support (OPTS), Montgomery County (Dayton), Ohio; and Tennessee Parents’ Fair Share Project, Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee.

1 Parents’ Fair Share Program Model

2 Sources of PFS Referrals

3 Resolution of Enhanced Enforcement Group Cases
in Two Parents’ Fair Share Sites

4 Staffing and Information Sources on the CSE Caseload

5 Process for Identifying Potential Referrals to PFS

6 Forum for the Review of PFS Cases

7 Appearance Rate of Potential PFS Referrals and Factors Affecting It

8 Disposition of NCPs Who Appeared at Review Hearing, Percent by Site

9 Defining PFS Eligibility

10 Making Downward Adjustments in Child Support Orders
for PFS Participants

11 Results of Home Visits in Montgomery County (January to June 1996)
 

The child support enforcement system is facing new challenges, many of them driven by recognition of the increasing importance of such support as family structures have changed. Further, the existing level of child support payments is low: Less than one-fourth of those entitled to payment are receiving what is due them. The child support system is working hard to establish the paternity of more of the children who are receiving welfare (and were born outside of marriage), to put legally binding support orders in place, and to use many new enforcement techniques to raise the level of support payments. This reform effort comes at a time when changes in national welfare policy — most importantly, a time limit on the receipt of federally funded cash welfare — makes the issue even more critical to poor families.

Welfare reform and a desire to keep welfare expenditures down have been a motivating force for action. In reality, however, the agencies involved have been hard-pressed to find effective ways to deal with low-income, unemployed parents who are legally obligated to pay support. Traditionally, agencies have often decided that these parents would not produce enough to be worth a major enforcement effort, and the available enforcement tools were not effective with this group. Ironically, even though low payment rates in welfare-related cases were one of the main reasons the public supported stronger child support enforcement, these cases have been among the most difficult to address, and low-income, unemployed noncustodial parents have often been neglected in daily support administration. Courts and child support enforcement agencies have felt they must choose between one of two ineffective options — ordering noncustodial parents to seek work or jailing these parents for contempt of the court order to pay support. As a consequence, enforcement efforts have often largely focused on parents for whom there is evidence of current income.

The Parents’ Fair Share (PFS) Demonstration tests the feasibility and effectiveness of a new enforcement option for child support agencies in the seven participating counties. Under PFS, courts and agencies can refer parents who fall within program eligibility rules (i.e., noncustodial parents who are linked to a public assistance case, unemployed or underemployed, and not up-to-date with their support payments) to employment and training, peer support, and mediation services and can offer special flexibility in child support administration. Because of the availability of this new option (which was intended to increase noncustodial parents’ employment and earnings, child support payments, and involvement with their children), agencies and the courts moved aggressively to determine the status of cases they had previously not considered a high priority for action.

This report is about what happened when agency staff started to review cases, identify eligible parents, and refer those parents to the program. In the course of this effort, which produced more than 5,000 cases appropriate for PFS, local staff learned much about the status of child support cases: For example, some noncustodial parents were working and had not reported their employment; the lives of others had changed in ways that made their existing support order inappropriate; and still others were unlocatable. Furthermore, the effort produced lessons relevant to the broader child support caseload about how to conduct what might be thought of as "outreach" to the caseload of poor parents who are behind in their payments. In sum, this report provides an up-close look at what for many jurisdictions will be a new and important aspect of enforcement.

Two other reports from the PFS Demonstration will be published in the near future: a qualitative research report on the lives, attitudes, and experiences of a sample of PFS participants and a report on PFS’s implementation experiences and early impacts on employment and child support. Together these reports will add greatly to our knowledge of the lives of low-income noncustodial parents and the challenges the child support system faces as it seeks to increase payments for children receiving public assistance.

This report could not have been completed without the support and assistance of numerous people in the participating program sites, at the Parents’ Fair Share funders, and at MDRC.

Special thanks are due the child support officials in the seven Parents’ Fair Share sites who facilitated their sites’ participation in the project and reviewed a draft of this report: William Camden (Grand Rapids, Michigan), Annette Day (Jacksonville, Florida), Felicia Hogan (Memphis, Tennessee), Linda Jenkins (Los Angeles, California), Nancy Randolph (Dayton, Ohio), Mark Rogers (Trenton, New Jersey), and Norman Wagner (Springfield, Massachusetts).

Several of the project’s funders have also been actively involved in this part of the project from its inception. Especially active in this role have been Ronald Mincy of the Ford Foundation, Robert Harris of the Office of Child Support Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Linda Mellgren at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Evaluation at HHS, and Mark Fucello at the Administration for Families and Children at HHS. Thanks are also due Vicki Turetsky of the Center for Law and Social Policy, who reviewed an early draft and suggested a number of ways to improve it.

At MDRC, Gordon Berlin, Judith Gueron, and Sharon Rowser reviewed drafts of this report and offered many helpful comments. Heidi Meyers did much of the background research on legal issues in child support enforcement, and Iris Reyes and Joan Johnson provided research assistance to the project. Sylvia Newman edited the report. Stephanie Cowell and Patt Pontevolpe did the word processing.

Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the child support enforcement staff in each of the Parents’ Fair Share sites who spent time discussing their experience and helped us track the results of the enhanced child support enforcement involved in the program.