Issues: Families with Children

Child Support

The child support system serves nearly 16 million children who live apart from at least one of their parents.  MDRC designs and studies efforts to improve the system’s performance, and reforms designed to change the way the system responds to noncustodial parents (usually fathers) who cannot afford to pay what they owe.  

The Latest
Brief

Parents’ Reflections on Their Experiences with the Child Support Program in the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt Demonstration

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrates procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This brief draws on interviews conducted with noncustodial and custodial parents in the study and describes parents’ perspectives on and experiences with the child support program.

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Report

A Comparison of Approaches Informed by Procedural Justice and Traditional Enforcement in the Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt Demonstration

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrated procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This report compares the service and enforcement experiences of parents randomly assigned to receive PJAC services with those of parents assigned to business as usual.

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Key Documents
Issue Focus

Applying Behavioral Science to Child Support

Building a Body of Evidence

Over the past several years, MDRC has worked with the federal Administration for Children and Families to test low-cost behavioral interventions to improve child support services in a number of states. This issue focus describes what’s been learned so far — and what’s planned for the future.

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Brief

Strengthening Low-Income Families: A Research Agenda for Parenting, Relationship, and Fatherhood Programs

Past and ongoing research offers direction for how to strengthen the most basic foundation for early childhood development: family relationships. Part of our “Looking Forward” series, this policy memo makes the case for building on this accumulating evidence to create new and innovative approaches to support children’s earliest years and the unique role of fathers.

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Report

The Challenge of Helping Low-Income Fathers Support Their Children

Final Lessons from Parents’ Fair Share

Fathers provide important financial and emotional support to their children. Yet low-income noncustodial fathers, with low wages and high rates of joblessness, often do not fulfill their parenting roles. The child support system has not traditionally helped these men to do so, since its focus has been on securing financial support from fathers who can afford to pay.

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