News and updates
Foster care policy change
A recent policy update has changed the way the program handles child support for children who are placed in foster care. Beginning on August 1, the program will discontinue the establishment of new child support orders on foster care child support cases.
Research shows that when parents are required to pay child support for children in foster care, children are likely to remain in foster care longer. This is because support payments reduce the economic resources that parents need to meet the requirements for reunification. Recent research also highlights the high cost and low cost-effectiveness of pursuing child support orders to reimburse foster care program costs.
Michigan Department of Health and Human Service’s Childrens Services Administration has determined that the pursuit of monetary support in foster care cases is, in most cases, not in the best interests of the child and may hinder MDHHS’s efforts toward family reunification.
LEAP program continues to expand
We all want to take the best care of our children. But sometimes it is tough to find decent work and make enough money to support them. The Learn, Earn and Provide program (LEAP) provides child support payers career coaching, job leads, career planning, and other support to find a better job. LEAP is made possible through a collaboration between the MDHHS Office of Child Support, the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity and county Michigan Works! offices.
LEAP is now in seven Michigan counties (Allegan, Bay, Branch, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, and St. Joseph) and will continue expanding incrementally over the next few years. For more information, visit the program webpage.
 OCS holds listening sessions
The Office of Child Support (OCS) recently conducted a series of four Listening Sessions. These initial sessions were offered to individuals who had expressed interest last fall in providing additional feedback to the child support program. Several child support professionals had the opportunity to hear the lived experiences of families served by the child support program.
OCS heard from both child support payers and child support payees, with a wide range of concerns. We heard that child support should not be “one size fits all” and that the program’s current policies and procedures do not provide equitable results for all participants. Participants were also concerned that in some situations, it seems that issues cannot be resolved without the assistance and associated expenses of an attorney.
Some of the specific scenarios that were identified as problematic include:
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Issues around medical support
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Concerns about support calculations
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The inability to easily communicate with Friend of the Court offices
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The income verification process for self-employed payers
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Lack of enforcement of parenting time
OCS will share the information we learned (without any personally identifying information) with the child support program’s leadership, which includes partners from the Friend of the Court offices, the State Court Administrative Office, and the Prosecuting Attorneys offices. We will also share our experience and the input we received through a message to all of Michigan’s child support professionals.
OCS appreciates the time these families took to share their experiences with us in the spirit of improving Michigan’s child support program. We hope to learn from and build on this experience to offer additional Listening Sessions, focus groups or town hall discussions in the future.
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