Gov. Hickenlooper Proclaims August ‘Child Support Services Month’

(Denver) – Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a proclamation recognizing August as Child Support Services Month in order to highlight the importance of both parents in the lives of Colorado’s children, and to recognize the achievements of child support professionals statewide.

“Colorado is committed to promoting the health and well-being of all our children by providing a variety of child support services to help ensure that parents pay child support on a regular and timely basis,” the proclamation says.

The recognition comes at a time when Child Support Services in Colorado has made recent strides in achieving better outcomes for families thanks to innovation and new approaches to child support enforcement.

One program showing positive results is the Colorado Parents Employment Project. The federally-funded pilot program was responsible for assisting nearly 200 non-custodial parents with finding employment in 2014. Of those parents receiving the project’s enhanced services, 76 percent have made a child support payment in the last six months.

Another recent innovation in Colorado Child Support Services is mobile and electronic methods of paying child support, introduced in March. The change has helped increase the convenience, efficiency and timeliness of delivering financial support to children. The new system has helped users make more than 5,000 payments totaling nearly $2 million in child support.

Colorado Child Support Services also has plans to begin an automated text messaging notification system by the end of this month. The system is intended to increase the effectiveness of child support enforcement correspondence by using short text messages in lieu of phone calls to communicate with clients. Similar systems implemented in other states have helped boost compliance with child support enforcement.