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In a small 2006 research project, 10 community-based organizations (CBOs) offered their thoughts on their awareness of child support enforcement services. As part of this research, they offered opinions on potential collaborations with child support enforcement offices. All of these CBOs provide services focused on the well-being of children, families, and women. Four are based in Los Angeles and six are in Washington, D.C.
These findings are detailed in Taking the Next Step: A Research & Design Project to Improve Access to Child Support Services by Hispanics prepared for the Office of Child Support Enforcement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The research revealed that these CBOs are ripe for collaboration opportunities; they demonstrated great interest in collaborating with child support enforcement offices at any level, especially at the grassroots level. They strongly believe there should be a better relationship between them and child support offices to foster a sharing of marketing materials and overall information that could influence the affected population.
However, they do not collaborate with child support because their awareness and understanding of child support enforcement offices is low. They refer their clients to other nonprofits instead of child support enforcement offices.
Child support enforcement offices can change this by informing CBOs about the services they provide. By understanding child support enforcement services, the CBOs will be better able to inform their stakeholders.
All of the CBOs interviewed would like to receive marketing materials from child support enforcement offices that include this information:
Keep this information in mind as you approach potential allies—many will likely have the same questions.
Below are the most common outreach methods these CBOs use. You could ask to collaborate with them on these activities so that you can extend your message to—and connect with—their audience, and vice versa:
They recommend posting information in these locations:
These CBOs have also found word of mouth and person-to-person meetings to be especially effective in spreading word of their services. Join them in an awareness campaign, and you can both enjoy added publicity.
Here are some more ideas for CBOs with whom you could collaborate:
Or you could co-sponsor an art or poetry contest on families, inviting children to express what their families mean to them. This collaboration would create awareness of your services if your agency’s name appeared on entry forms and with the winning entries.
While you can ask the church to distribute your materials as part of an educational campaign, a more-effective approach is to ask church elders to advocate personally for your cause. You could request that bible study teachers devote one class to child support, perhaps quoting scripture that highlights the importance of family and then opening a discussion on how child support can strengthen families.
Or set up a group of child support mentors within the church, so that people who are considering seeking child support can ask questions and receive personal advice from an esteemed community member.
Another option is a “Heritage Day” event in which you encourage Hispanics to celebrate their cultural traditions and their families. The emphasis on culture would be a good stepping stone to child support; you could hand out materials stating that children who know their fathers usually know their entire family and may identify better with their heritage. You also could appeal to fathers to strengthen their families by paying child support and connecting with their children.
For example, New York City has an organization called New York Cares that each year posts local volunteer opportunities for 850 organizations to its 33,000 volunteers. Greater DC Cares is a similar organization in Washington, D.C.
VolunteerMatch.org is a free online service that lets you post volunteer opportunities nationwide. Potential volunteers can search the opportunities by zip code, then click on your link to contact you and offer their help.
Search online or check your phone directory for similar organizations and sites, then contact them to see how you can sign up.