Many Federal programs and Federally-funded programs have eligibility rules or other features that have tended to make it difficult for fathers to participate in the program or receive services. Sometimes this is because program administrators just don't think about fathers when they design their programs or conduct outreach. In other cases, Federal programs have been managed in such a way that fathers may believe they are not eligible when in fact they are, or State and local administrators and project staff may mistakenly believe that fathers are not eligible for the programs they administer. Very few Federal programs are specifically targeted towards fathers per se. Typically, programs providing social or medical services, housing, education, employment and related functions are designed to serve families in general, or children; not "fathers" (and frequently not "mothers," either). As a result, Federal laws and regulations often do not specifically mention fathers, and this can reinforce the notion that fathers may not be eligible or that States or grantees would risk audit disallowances if they were to include fathers.
Moreover, many Federal programs provide considerable discretion to States and local jurisdictions, permitting them to provide services for fathers or include fathers in their programs, but not requiring them to do so. (The Federal welfare program described in Chapter 6 — Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) — is a good example.) In such cases, it is often useful for citizens and advocates at the local or State level to ensure that administrators are aware of the discretion they have to serve or include fathers. It is equally important to make certain that program administrators are aware of the needs, interests and concerns of fathers and fathers' advocates.
This chapter responds to some frequently asked questions about Federal rules and how they effect fathers' eligibility for programs and the provision of services to promote responsible fatherhood. No new Federal policies are enunciated here; but the scope and intent of existing Federal laws and regulations are re-stated, and in some cases clarified, in order to provide accurate policy information.
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The Child Support Enforcement Program is sometimes viewed as not being father friendly. This perspective does not come from enforcement actions taken against fathers who have the ability to provide support for their children, but choose not to, but rather from concern about child support awards and enforcement actions that seem not to recognize some nonresident fathers are as poor as the mothers of their children. The child support community and father program providers have raised questions about how child support agencies and courts can help to make poor fathers' child support payments manageable and, in some limited circumstances, to ease the burden of unpaid child support debt (referred to as "arrearages"). The purpose of working with fathers in this way is to encourage them to pay current child support, and structure their current and past obligations in a way that they can pay what they owe. The underlying assumption is that many poor fathers want to support their children and be involved in their lives, and that they will support their children whenever possible. In the discussion below, the terms "noncustodial parents" and "nonresident parents" refer to those persons whose children (biological or adopted) live with the other parent or someone else, e.g. a grandparent. Most often the noncustodial (nonresident) parent is the father, but some times it is the mother.
In the summer of 2000 the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the results of a study entitled The Establishment of Child Support Orders for Low Income Noncustodial Parents, (OIG-05-99-00390), which can be found at the Office of Child Support Enforcement website: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/extinf.htm. This study identified a number of problems across the country that, in the view of the OIG, affected the capacity of low income noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) to pay child support, even when they were willing to pay. The major findings of the study were:
The findings described by the OIG represent practices or policies that, especially when taken together, may make it difficult for some low income noncustodial parents to deal with the child support system, to feel that they have been treated fairly, and to find a practical and effective way to provide support for their children. As the OIG noted, there is considerable policy disparity among States. In addition, there is confusion in some quarters over Federal law and regulations in this area. Accordingly, the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within HHS issued a policy document re-stating existing Federal policy and making it clear that States already have the authority to take action with respect to many of these policies and practices, if they wish to do so.
The complete policy document Policy Interpretation Question PIQ-00-02 dated September 14, 2000, may be found at the Office of Child Support website, http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/pol/piq-00-03.htm. This PIQ provides answers to the following key Federal policy questions:
Q. If a father owes a lot of back child support, perhaps more than he can reasonably be expected to pay off, is there anything that can be done about that?
Some States use a formula to establish the amount of child support to be paid, even when information about the father's actual income and assets was not available in the proceedings that established the child support order. The father's income is imputed. Other States provide for a minimum amount of child support whether the father has any income or not. In some of these cases, the amount of support ordered can be more than the father can actually pay. Can anything be done about that?
This means that States may exercise discretion in how they set child support orders, but it will not necessarily affect current child support orders. For that purpose, there is a procedure called review and adjustment in which existing child support orders may be reviewed periodically to ensure that they are adequate for the child(ren) and appropriate for the noncustodial parent. If it is determined to be necessary, the amount of the support order can be modified.
Q. Suppose a child support order is not established until the child is two or three years old. Does the child support have to cover all the time since the child was born, creating arrearages just at the time the current payments are starting? Do things like birthing costs have to be included in the prior child support?
In the PIQ and elsewhere OCSE encourages States to examine their policies for dealing with low income persons who owe child support. There may be circumstances involving low-income debtors that warrant consideration of compromising arrearages in accordance with State law. For example, Maryland recently initiated a pilot collaborative project in Baltimore between the IV-D [Child Support] program and three fatherhood programs under which a portion of arrearages owed to the State could be compromised for unemployed noncustodial parents who enroll and complete a responsible fatherhood project where they go to work and complete certain activities. Additional portions of the State debt may also be compromised after the noncustodial parent has completed one year, then another year, of paying current support. The goal of the project is to relieve these fathers of what is largely an uncollectible debt owed to the State so they can focus on current support payments.
An amnesty program could be one way to address the problem of high arrearages for low-income debtors. State amnesty programs for arrearages tend to fall into one of two categories: those that compromise part of the arrearages owed to the State and those that halt or postpone an enforcement action.
States also may have the authority under State law to compromise or forgive penalties or interest charges on arrearages. States may choose to compromise penalties or interest alone or in conjunction with the compromise of the principal unpaid child support obligation. West Virginia's new law, effective January 1, 2001, will allow debtors who pay arrearages off within a 24-month period to have the interest dropped, if all parties agree.
Colorado conducted a Debt and Retroactive Support Initiative in 1998. An evaluation of this initiative, done by the Center for Policy Research in September 1999, under an OCSE grant, failed to confirm the practical utility of the initiative. The evaluation tried to answer the question, "Does the suspension of debt and retroactive orders lead to better payment of current child support?" Noncustodial parents in both an experimental (debt suspended) and control group paid an identical 40 percent of what they owed for monthly child support. Nearly half the parents in both groups paid virtually nothing and about a third paid virtually everything. Payment patterns were equivalent in public assistance and non-public assistance cases. For more information, see "Dropping Debt: An Evaluation of Colorado's Debt and Retroactive Support Initiative" Center for Policy Research, September, 1999. Prepared under Federal OCSE Grant (Grant No. 99-ff-0027).
While the strategies for debt management noted above can assist poor fathers who have accumulated child support arrearages, the best strategy for working with poor fathers is to ensure that awards are based on actual ability to pay and to get employment help for unemployed and underemployed parents as quickly as possible. The Office of Child Support Enforcement encourages States to make referrals to Welfare-to-Work programs, TANF work programs and to use other nontraditional approaches to assist low-income noncustodial parents.
Determining how far back to set support for prior periods may also effect payment of support, according to the OIG study. Some States limit the time an order can be retroactive. Kentucky prohibits a retroactive support order unless paternity is established within four years. Maine only allows six years of retroactive support.
Review and modification policies that seek to ensure that child support orders reflect the current ability of the noncustodial parent to pay support can help to avoid cases where large amounts of arrearages accrue. For example, some States have avoided the accumulation of large arrearages while debtors are incarcerated. North Carolina automatically modifies a support order once a father is incarcerated. Colorado's IV-D program writes newly incarcerated fathers to explain the procedures for modifying their support orders. In addition, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands do outreach to individuals who may be able to request downward modifications. For example, Puerto Rico does outreach in prisons and in industries and government offices expecting layoffs to advise people of their rights to adjustments. The Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement encourages States to regularly publicize to obligated parents the opportunity to request review and possible adjustment of a support obligation based upon a significant change in circumstances, such as incarceration. States are required to have procedures in place which provide for modification (both upwards and downwards) at the request of either parent and/or for mothers receiving TANF at the request of the State (See 42 U.S.C 666(a)(10)). Appropriate State responses to these requests will ensure that support orders, once they are established, continue to be based on a debtor's current ability to pay.
Some States, such as Louisiana, have provided customer service training to caseworkers to help change attitudes to encourage outreach and referral of nonpaying debtors to appropriate and needed services. Los Angeles County child support workers and local service providers conduct intake at the courthouse for fathers who are behind in child support payments, providing help and appropriate referrals for needed job and other services. Georgia operates a similar program, the Fatherhood Initiative, using child support agencies as connection points to refer fathers to employment-based services and skill-building classes. First year results show that 80% of the 450 debtors who completed job skills training are now employed and paying child support. The program expanded Statewide into 36 technical schools in November 1998. The program has formed partnerships with the Georgia Department of Labor and the State Board of Pardons and Parole.
Other States' efforts with job-related programs include: Delaware, making referrals through the Parents Seek Work Project; California, operating a demonstration project in seven counties to determine whether providing these types of services will improve support payment, increase parent involvement or reduce public assistance to the children of these parents; Missouri's Parents' Fair Share program, which offers jobs and job training; Idaho's "career enhancement" services; and New York's Westchester and Ontario Counties collaboration with Welfare-to- Work programs. Washington's offices have been working directly with local resources such as private industry councils, employment security, public assistance, and tribes for 2 years to make referrals. Each office has a process to identify potential participants or judges may order participation. Outreach includes prisons for screening of inmate obligors who are close to release for Welfare-toWork eligibility. Many of these programs involve a mixture of funding streams for maximum flexibility.
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When children who have not recently been in direct contact with one parent (the father, in this example) are being placed for adoption, sometimes the noncustodial parent is not notified of the plans for the child or of a pending action to terminate parental rights. (Termination of parental rights, or TPR, is a process necessary to free a child for adoption, if that child has or may have any living parents.) This can happen because the legal notice required by a court's TPR procedures, may involve advertising in local newspapers and sending a letter to the father's last known address, but that may not actually be an effective way to reach a noncustodial parent. As a result, children can be deprived of an opportunity to be raised by a loving parent, and a noncustodial parent can be deprived of the opportunity to raise and provide for the child. What is more, in such circumstances, the adoption agency does not have a chance to seek a permanent home for the child either with her father or among her paternal relatives.
For very similar reasons, it is sometimes the case that fathers of children in the child welfare system are not fully involved in or are even excluded from case planning for the child, and often the paternal side of a child's family is missed in the search for temporary (foster) placements for children. Often this situation arises when the father is a noncustodial parent, and the home from which the child is removed is the mother's home. But if child welfare agencies were able routinely to contact the father or the father's relatives, the number of relative homes in which a child might be placed could be increased, and the need for placing a child in a stranger's home correspondingly reduced.
To respond to both of these issues and to assist the child welfare system in the States, the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and the Children's Bureau, both HHS agencies, have worked together on a procedure, spelled out in an OCSE "Dear Colleague Letter" (DC-97-31) dated June 4, 1997, that describes the way a State may use Child Support's Federal Parent Locator Service to facilitate family preservation and promote adoption. The DCL provides answers to the following key questions:
"Second, since the proceedings preliminary to adoption can appropriately be characterized as a child custody determination, a judicial decision-maker or agent of the court could have access to the same location information available to child support enforcement agencies. Of course, disclosure of such information is contingent upon appropriate safeguards being in place to maintain its confidentiality.
"Third, while the general practice is for persons applying for support enforcement services to apply for the complete range of such services, an applicant can limit his or her request to "location-only" services. Through this mechanism, a child's attorney or court-appointed guardian ad litem could obtain access to the full range of location sources."
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Most fathers need a job, and the stability that regular employment brings, in order to provide for their children both financially and emotionally. And for some fathers it is especially difficult to find work because of certain factors in their backgrounds. The U. S. Department of Labor sponsors the Federal Bonding Program, which issues fidelity bonds to help such persons. Bonding is a unique tool to help a job applicant get and keep a job.
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Some fathers have experienced difficulties when they have tried to apply for benefits that are usually thought of as "mothers" benefits. The Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, often referred to as WIC, provides supplementary food benefits for pregnant and lactating women and for infants and young children.
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Recent information from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that almost 700,000 incarcerated men report being the parent of a minor children. Almost half of these fathers report living with their children prior to incarceration. ("Incarcerated Parents and Their Children," August 2000, NCJ, 182335, available at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/iptc.htm) Many of these parents are released from prison each year and return to their communities. Many of them hope to return to their families as well. One of the policies that raises concerns for families that want to be reunited subsequent to a father's (or mother's) release from prison is the HUD policy that requires Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and other housing owners to deny or terminate housing assistance for certain criminal conduct. This policy is sometimes referred to as the HUD One-Strike and You're Out Initiative, see HUD directive at http://www.hud.gov:80/progdesc/1strike.html.
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Passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996 made significant changes in the way the cash assistance and health care coverage systems for poor families operated. Under the pre-PRWORA welfare system (known as AFDC), deprivation of parental support (usually the father) was one of the conditions of eligibility for cash assistance and Medicaid eligibility was linked to receipt of cash assistance. While there were exceptions, such as the unemployed parent program (AFDC-UP), and some poor two parent families were also eligible for Medicaid, welfare was commonly viewed as available only to custodial mothers and their children. Having a husband or partner in the home, even if that husband or partner was not working, could mean the loss of cash assistance and health care. Poor single parent families were much more likely to receive cash assistance and Medicaid, than were poor two parent families. Passage of PRWORA changed the effect of welfare rules on poor two parent families in several important ways. The new welfare legislation removed the Federal eligibility requirements relating to deprivation of care and support under the new welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). PRWORA also delinked Medicaid eligibility from receipt of cash assistance under the TANF program.
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Last updated: 1/19/01