1. Court Record Data Collection
Collections from the court record allow us to address a range of child support enforcement policy issues that cannot be addressed using KIDS data alone. The collected data will include information on legal custody and physical placement, visitation, and details concerning the specific provisions of each order (e.g., childcare and child physical placement provisions). Other information collected will include records of deviations from the use of the guidelines, and information on returns to court for purposes related to child placement, child support order revision, or enforcement of child support. During the period of this agreement, we will collect Cohorts 42 and 43 of paternity and divorce cases (cases coming to court in 2022 and 2023). We tentatively expect to collect approximately 1,750 cases from court files in 21 counties, consistent with past rounds of collection. We will also complete processing of data for Cohorts 40 and 41, collected through the 2022–2024 CSRA.
2. The Child Support Guidelines and Analyses to Support the Forthcoming Quadrennial Review
To support the upcoming quadrennial guidelines review, we will conduct three sets of analyses and associated research products. First, consistent with our periodic prior reports on child support guidelines, we will produce a report assessing the use of the guidelines in the most recent available cohorts in the court record data, examining cases coming to court in 2017, 2019, and 2020. Considering information in the court record on income of both parents, the number of children, the placement arrangement, and prior obligations of the noncustodial parent (serial families), we will estimate what an order consistent with the guidelines would be and compare this to the actual order in the case, estimating the proportion of cases that are consistent with the guidelines versus those that are above or below. We will include an analysis of the extent to which guidelines are used in low-income cases. Second, we will examine payments on child support orders by case characteristics, including an analysis of payments by whether the order follows the low-income child support guidelines. Finally, we will provide a nontechnical synthesis of IRP’s research on shared placement, focusing on its potential implications for shared placement guidelines as well as child support systems more broadly.
3. The Geography of Driver’s License Suspension: Prevalence, Patterns, and Implications for Employment and Earnings
In Wisconsin, roughly 4,000 child support obligors have a driver’s license suspended due to unpaid support over the course of the year. Building on work in the 2022–2024 CSRA on the importance of place in understanding family circumstances and child support policy outcomes, this task will explore the importance of place in understanding the implications of driver’s license suspensions for child support involved families.
We will examine patterns of driver’s license suspensions, utilizing address data from KIDS to identify the extent to which suspensions are issued to obligors living in areas where lack of a license may be particularly problematic, such as areas lacking access to public transportation and areas characterized by substantial out-commuting for work. We will also explore how area characteristics mediate the employment impact of license suspensions and, to the extent data permit, we will assess whether area characteristics mediate the likelihood that noncustodial parents whose licenses have been suspended are subsequently charged with driving with a suspended license using circuit court records.
4. Driver’s License Suspension: Fidelity to a Forthcoming Policy Change
When child support obligors do not pay the support they owe, agencies are able to use administrative and judicial tools to encourage compliance. Driver’s license suspension is one such tool agencies have at their disposal. This task will build on work conducted through the 2022–2024 CSRA on license suspensions of any type by focusing on driver’s license suspension specifically. The first project component will extend our prior analyses to examine the prevalence of use of driver’s license suspension actions specifically, and the characteristics of obligors most likely to experience driver’s license suspension actions. The second component will explore the implications of potential policy changes.
5. Child Support and Child Welfare System Interactions
Prior research in Wisconsin demonstrates that child support referrals for child welfare-involved families have significant negative consequences for children’s reunification with parents. This task will consist of three reports related to this topic. The first report will explore the research question: How common are orders for arrears associated with foster care placement for custodial parents who have been reunified with their children, as well as for noncustodial parents, after family reunification, and how are such orders associated with stability of reunification? In this analysis, we will describe the timing and amount of arrears with respect to custodial and non-custodial parent characteristics, such as their total number of children and child support orders and incarceration status, as well as county-, court-, and judicial-level variation in practices. We will document the frequency and level of arrears for each parent at the time of reunification, whether orders for payments on arrears are put in place, and levels of compliance. The second report will address the research question: What are the economic mechanisms through which child support order cost-recovery assignment impacts reunification? In this analysis, we will first describe the income sources for custodial parents before, during, and after a child is placed in out-of-home care, highlighting the role of child support. We will then determine how specific income sources change after removal, in the period surrounding the assignment of a foster care cost-recovery child support order. We will examine changes in child support orders and income from noncustodial parents (due to redirection of existing orders, or establishment of new orders), and from the original custodial parent (due to orders associated with foster care placement). The third report will address the research question: What is the relationship between foster care-related cost-recovery child support order assignment and non-custodial father compliance, and how does compliance impact re-reports and stability of reunification? The aim of this analysis is to determine whether order re-assignment affects child support compliance by the non-custodial parent and by extension, reunification timing and stability.
6. The Role of Child Support and the Safety Net in Promoting Mothers’ Employment and Maternal and Infant Health During the Perinatal Period
The birth of a new child is an economically vulnerable period for many families. However, little is known about how parents package together multiple sources of income—from earnings, child support, and the safety net—in the year before birth and after and the implications of these income packages for maternal and infant health. To address this gap, this task will address the following questions: (1) Among separated families, how quickly are child support orders established—and child support payments received—following the birth of a child? How does this vary by birth order and by parental employment and safety net participation during pregnancy? (2) What are the effects of child support receipt and safety net participation on maternal employment during the pregnancy, postpartum, and early childhood periods? And (3) What are the effects of different types of income packages during pregnancy and postpartum on maternal and infant health?
7. Exploring the Connection Between Child Support and Child Care Subsidies
Child support and child care subsidies can be crucial economic supports for low-income custodial parent families. This project will investigate the link between receipt of child support and child care subsidies to explore patterns of both child support and child care subsidy receipt and, in particular, how the receipt, amount, and stability of child support is associated with stability in subsidy eligibility and receipt. We will then investigate whether regularity of child support receipt may be related to subsidy eligibility and child care placement. Additionally, we will conduct qualitative interviews with parents who have child support orders to learn more about their experiences with child care subsidies, the role subsidies and child support play in access to child care and household financial circumstances, and how child care subsidies may impact co-parenting relationships.
8. Implications of Consumer Debt for Families Served by Child Support
Borrowing has become a common element of family finances. Research in the child support domain has not yet examined potential implications of noncustodial parent (NCP) indebtedness with child support order amounts, payment, and compliance. To begin to address this research gap, this study will use administrative data linked with credit report data to describe the types and amounts of debt held by NCPs with child support orders, and to estimate associations of specific types and amounts of debt with child support order amounts, payments, compliance, and arrears.
9. Developing the Next Wave of an Employment-Focused Program for Noncustodial Parents
The evaluation of the Supporting Parents Supporting Kids (SPSK) program, a new approach to child support for noncustodial parents (NCPs) behind on payments with employment difficulties, showed promising results in several domains. Wisconsin built on these findings through the implementation of the ELEVATE program in five Wisconsin counties, and Wisconsin is in the process of developing the next iteration of ELEVATE. As part of the current agreement, we will provide a series of memos summarizing the literature about key areas of interest to DCF in support of the development of the new program. Additionally, we will work with DCF to design a process study and accompanying data collection tools to evaluate an initial pilot of the new ELEVATE program.
10. Survey-Based Outcomes from the ELEVATE Evaluation
The evaluation for the current version of Wisconsin’s ELEVATE program includes an impact evaluation with primary outcomes measured by both administrative and survey data. Primary outcomes measured by administrative data will be included in the ELEVATE final evaluation report. This project supplements the final report, reporting the impact estimates of the ELEVATE primary outcome measures derived from survey data. These include primary outcome measures in the domains of attitudes towards the child support program, employment, earnings, and sense of responsibility for children. Additionally, this report will use survey data to describe the services ELEVATE participants received through the program.
11. Expanding, Evaluating, and Comparing Peer Parenting Groups for Noncustodial Fathers
The importance of fathers’ engagement and financial support for child well-being and development, especially in low-income families, is well-documented. However, many noncustodial fathers experience barriers to financially supporting and spending time with their children. Through the 2022–2024 CSRA, IRP researchers collaborated with colleagues at UW Division of Extension to develop and pilot a peer-support program providing education on topics specifically tailored to non-custodial fathers—such as child support, custody, and co-parenting—and including peer support from other fathers. In the current CSRA, we will expand the pilot study to evaluate the program: 1) in underserved sub-populations of noncustodial fathers; and 2) by comparing different program modalities. The goal of the project is to evaluate different versions of the peer support program and to compare the benefits and trade-offs of fatherhood peer support programs across target populations and program modalities.
12. Exploring the Role of Home Visiting Programs in Connecting Fathers with Child Support Information and Services
In recent years, child support agencies made important shifts toward family-centered policies and practices that emphasize holistic support for noncustodial parents in the areas of healthy relationships, positive parenting, and economic stability. Home visiting programs offer a promising and largely unexplored avenue for connecting expecting and new fathers with child support information and services in the context of holistic, family-centered support. The City of Milwaukee Health Department offers a unique home visiting program specifically designed for fathers: the Direct Assistance to Dads (DAD) Project. In this task, we will explore how the DAD Project coaches fathers and fathers-to-be to think about their children’s future; build their capacity to co-parent effectively; and financially support their children, including by making consistent child support payments. Through interviews with DAD Project staff and clients, we will examine how DAD Project staff educate fathers and facilitate connections to child support and related services, and how accessing child support through a trusted home visitor influences fathers’ perceptions of the child support system and engagement. We will also explore how other home visiting programs in Wisconsin are integrating child support information and referrals into their efforts through a survey of Wisconsin home visitors.