Preface

Preface from "The Face of Child Support"

"The Face of Child Support" is a timeless guide that strengthens families when one parent is not at home. There are over 17 million caseloads totaling $20.1 billion collected in child support payments. The custodial parent and noncustodial parent are both vital in the development, physically and emotionally of their children.

Historically, child support enforcement's goal provided four major services to our customers: 1) locating noncustodial parents, 2) establishing paternity, 3) establishing support orders, and 4) collecting support payments. Today, CSE continues to provide these services along with additional services to foster relationships between noncustodial parents and their children.

When one thinks about child support, the gender that is usually the custodial parent is the mother, however, more fathers are custodial parents. There were a total of 6,924,000 custodial parents in the 2001 Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, April 2002. Of this number, 712,000 were fathers that were custodial parents. The changing gender of child support still however increased the number of paternities that is established or acknowledged each year. The CSE Program had 1.5 million paternities established or acknowledged, and 1.2 million new child support orders were established, according to the Office of Child Support Enforcement.

The goal of "The Face of Child Support" is to educate, empower, and encourage both custodial and noncustodial parents to actively participating in the lives of their children.

Sometimes it seems unfair that CSE Programs focuses more on the financial aspect of the wellbeing of children. The bottom line is that the financial state of a household provides a better way of life for our children. When one parent is not at home, the financial aspect of taking care of their children is absent. Therefore, the financial support is crucial.

"The Face of Child Support" encourages the strengthening of families, however, sometimes families are broken by divorces or were started out-of-wedlock, whatever the situation may be, the support of our children is the most important role we can play.

Let’s continue to work together in providing a better life for our children financially, physically and emotionally.