Over one-quarter of all children under 21 years of age have one of their parents living outside of their household. When this occurs, it is often the legal obligation of the noncustodial parent to provide financial support to help pay for the costs associated with raising their children. This report provides an overview of these children and their custodial parents, including their socioeconomic characteristics and the types and amount of child support received from noncustodial parents.
The Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services (BICS) project aims to improve federally funded child support services by increasing program efficiency, developing interventions informed by behavioral science, and building a culture of rapid-cycle evaluation. In the state of Washington, the Division of Child Support (DCS) is responsible for establishing and enforcing child support orders. For the BICS intervention, DCS aimed to foster a more cooperative relationship with parents during the order establishment process, in order to increase collections in the short term and…
This report, written by Wilder Research, a division of Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, outlines how to monetize the economic returns and avoided costs of outcomes typically associated with responsible fatherhood programs, plus additional potential, two-generation, long-term child development and family well-being outcomes of father engagement. It makes a strong economic case for investing in comprehensive responsible fatherhood programs, which would include GED programming, job placement services, diversion services as an alternative to incarceration, parenting education with play and learn…
Relationships between children and their parents are the foundation on which children learn how to form and sustain healthy relationships. Disrupting those relationships—by losing a parent to incarceration, for example—can have long-term effects on children and may lead to antisocial behavior, poor school performance, and physical and mental health problems. To mitigate the risks of parental incarceration for children, some correctional agencies offer parent-child visits in prisons or jails. There are several types of parent-child visits, but many experts believe contact visits, where the…
Family Expectations (FE) is a program in Oklahoma City designed to strengthen the relationships of low-income couples who are expecting a baby or have just had a baby. For all families, this period is typically full of promise but also vulnerability. FE is one of eight sites that are participating in a large national evaluation of Building Strong Families (BSF), a federally funded program for unmarried parents. The underlying rationale for BSF is that relationship skills education and family support services provided to unmarried parents in a romantic relationship will help them learn how to…
The Alabama Department of Child Abuse Prevention (DCAP) -- The Children's Trust Fund (CTF) has a more than 25 year history as the only state agency explicitly focused on educating our communities about child abuse and neglect and providing prevention programs. DCAP is focused on supporting family-strengthening community programs andinvesting upfront in efforts to enhance the chance that children in our state grow up in a nurturing and supportive home. A 2007 study by the Universityof Alabama revealed that child abuse and neglect costs taxpayers $520,800,290 every year.In Project Year 2007-…
As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher income and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. These widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This paper reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two strategies to strengthen fathers' involvement and family relationships-- fatherhood programs aimed at disadvantaged noncustodial fathers and relationship…
What has a more powerful influence on how parents raise their young children: the way they were raised or their faith? What roles do professionals and friends play in shaping parents? views on childrearing? What impact is the economic downturn having on child care arrangements for young families? These questions and more are some of the issues addressed in a new national parent survey of 1,615 parents of children from birth to 3 years conducted for ZERO TO THREE by Peter Hart Research. The survey was designed to explore the issues and challenges that parents of young children confront today,…
This report details the experiences of six two-generation intervention projects in New York City supported by grants from the Foundation for Child Development. The two-generation projects help low-income families gain access to employment-related services for parents, and developmental services such as quality child care and health care for children. Although programs varied, all included voluntary services, used counseling, and had a moderate level of openness to parent input and decision making. Chapter 1 of the report describes recent changes in the welfare system and efforts to develop…
This report presents the findings of a study of 1,085 U.S. parenting adults of 3 to 13 year olds that explored how families experience developmental relationships, how experiences of developmental relationships vary among different families, the extent to which developmental relationships contribute to children’s development and well-being across different types of families and circumstances, everyday interactions in families that facilitate (or interfere with) developmental relationships, strategies that hold promise for engaging families through a focus on developmental relationships, and…
