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ACF Joint Letter Encourages States to Stop Collecting Child Support for Foster Care Maintenance Cases
The Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Children’s Bureau (CB) and Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) have released a joint letter encouraging child welfare agencies to very rarely require child support payments to offset the cost of foster care from parents of children who receive title IV-E Foster Care Maintenance Payments. The letter details findings that the payments delay reunification efforts and are not in the best interest of any family already impacted by economic insecurity, family instability, and separation.
The letter references a Wisconsin study which found requiring mothers to pay child support to offset the costs of foster care delayed reunification. Specifically, a $100 increase in the monthly child support order amount is predicted to increase the months to reunification by 6.6 months. The letter also references an Orange county study, which found collecting child support payments was not cost-effective, yielding 41 cents collected for each dollar spent on administering the program. The study also found that for every dollar in foster care maintenance payments expended, the federal government only recuperated 4 cents through child support collections.
ACF encourages child welfare agencies to set policies and data systems to default each foster care maintenance case position to not be referred for child support collections. By implementing these policy changes, the agencies hope to reduce stress and advance equitable outcomes for children and families. California’s legislature is considering Assembly Bill 1686, which would require county welfare departments to presume that the payment of child support by a parent is likely to pose a barrier to the proposed reunification plan.
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