Shifting Federal Guidance on Mandatory Child Support Orders

From the American Bar Association:

Introduction   

In most states, parents are referred to the local child support enforcement office and are requested to pay for the cost of their child's stay in care. Federal guidance on this issue shifted last year and states are now encouraged to develop "across the board" policies and to assign child support "only in very rare circumstances." Some states are beginning to address this issue, but due to the obscure nature of the policy, most are not.

Why Mandatory Child Support Orders Hurt Families and Delay Reunification

The practice of requiring parents to pay child support when their children are in Title IV-E foster care is harmful to children and families. To limit this harm, The Administration for Children and Families (AFC) Children’s Bureau (CB), together with the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), announced new guidelines for Title IV-E child welfare agencies regarding the collection of child support for children receiving title IV-E foster care maintenance payments (FCMPs). Their new guidelines encourage child welfare agencies to establish policies limiting support order referrals to only rare cases where the order does not delay reunification.

Read more here.