UC Davis Extension takes part in the changing face of child support enforcement

In a society where the term "deadbeat dad" has become almost a cliché, many government enforcement agencies are beginning to adopt a "kinder, gentler" approach to upholding parents' financial obligations to their children.

The reality is that when child support payments pile up, non-custodial parents who owe money often stay away from their children for fear of being arrested. Enforcement agencies now recognize that locking up parents who are delinquent in support payments is often not in the best interest of the parents or their children, not to mention the taxpayers in the community.

"We want to do more than just collect payments—we want to support families by offering needed resources to both those who pay and those who receive child support," explains Rhonda Walton, director of the Merced County Child Support Services Agency. Such resources include the development of a job placement assistance program, counseling services for parents and children, alcohol/drug treatment and recovery services, outreach to at-risk youth and young adults about preventing unwanted pregnancy and other resources which take a progressive approach to child support enforcement.

UC Davis Extension and Merced County Child Support Services Agency recently began collaboration on a training project to help support the county's efforts to deliver these services and resources. The training project will assist staff in their transition to a new way of providing child support services to their customers.

As a result of federal welfare reform, all states are now required to develop and implement a statewide automated system for child support collection, disbursement and case management. Developing and transitioning to such a system has been a tremendous undertaking for California—a state which had 58 separate county child support systems in operation tracking approximately 1.6 million cases. Despite these challenges, once in place, the new system will better serve California families and increase the state's ability to put child support dollars into the hands of children and families.

Merced County transitioned to the new system last November. "Once we got through the initial shock, the reality of learning how to do our jobs in a completely different way began to set in," recalls Walton. She soon realized that additional training was necessary for her entire staff. Walton—who was familiar with UC Davis Extension's human services training—approached its Center for Human Services with an opportunity to develop a training program for child support staff in her county, and perhaps statewide.

After months of assessment and curriculum development, The Center for Human Services will deliver its first training workshops in Merced County in late summer.

"The training goes beyond the technical aspects of learning how the new child support system works," explains UC Davis Extension curriculum developer and instructor Dan Witherell. "It also delves into the human interaction component of each worker's job—which is something of a shift for child support enforcement agencies."

"Our goal is that by the time we've completed the Merced County training, we will have a product that will be useful for counties throughout the state," says Witherell.

Witherell and Walton will present the results of the training project to all of California's county child support services directors at a statewide conference in October. If the presentation is well-received, then UC Davis Extension may soon find itself working with counties across the state in an effort to improve services to more than a million California families.