Child Support Sets Families Up for Success

As commissioner for the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Child Support Services, I get to travel across the country to visit state, tribal, county, and local child support offices. I meet with child support professionals who are the backbone of our program and find innovative and effective ways to help children and families each day. We're able to celebrate the hardworking staff and promote this critical program during Child Support Awareness Month each August.

In FY23, state programs(PDF)nationwide collected $29.6 billion and served 12.7 million children-that's 1 in 5 children in the United States. Tribal programs(PDF)collected $50 million in FY23, $10 million of which was collected for other tribes, states, or countries. This support helps kids thrive.

Our program not only helps children, we're committed to serving the whole family. In fact, last year we changed our name to Office of Child Support Servicesbecause it reflects our program's family-centered approach. Many local programs help parents through services like employment programs, fatherhood initiatives, reentry partnerships and more.

Supporting local programs

We've been doing a lot of regulatory work at the federal level to support tribes and states in their mission to help children and families. This year, we got two final rules across the finish line:

• Fully fund tribal programs: This rule supports the growth of the tribal child support program by eliminating burdensome costs. With this new rule, the federal government will fully fund new and existing tribal child support programs starting this October 1.
• Help states weather pandemics and emergencies: ACF published a rule that allows OCSS to modify performance measure requirements and waive penalties for failure to meet these requirements when an emergency impacts a state's ability to achieve the standards for paternity establishment, order establishment, and current collections.

Regulatory work takes dedication and patience. I'm so grateful for the child support professionals and partners who submitted comments and feedback over the years to help us implement these important changes. OCSS will continue to engage partners as we look for opportunities for improvement and ways to build on our program's strong performance.

Spread the word

We've created a Child Support Awareness Month social media toolkitto help state and tribal child support agencies and the public spread the word about this family-centered program. The toolkit has sample text and graphics that you can copy and paste or modify as needed. We hope you'll use these materials to help people understand how child support serves the whole family and encourage them to learn more from their local office.

You can also stay up to date with the child support program by subscribing to our monthly newsletter,Child Support Report.

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