Improving-Child-Support-Enforcement Outcomes with ODR in Michigan

https://www.miottawa.org/aboutottawa.htm

Our NCSC KIS group recently posted one of our "Trends" articles by Kevin Bowling and Jannell Challa of the Michigan 20th Circuit Court along with NCSC colleague, Di Graski on how ODR facilitated communications to improve child support outcomes for the participants and the court (PDF).  Please read more about this significant achievement below:





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The report notes that “Ottawa County is home to about a quarter-million people and more than 12,000 active child support enforcement cases.  And in 2018 noncustodial parents in Ottawa County paid approximately $40 million in child support. Following Ottawa County’s implementation of ODR, it exceeded the Office of Child Support Enforcement’s 80 percent benchmark for the collection of current child support, meaning that the county became eligible to receive additional incentive payments from the federal government.

In the past, Ottawa County’s show-cause hearings were scheduled “en masse” every Friday. Friend of the Court investigators brought thousands of child-support show-cause matters before two family court judges every year, and more than a thousand bench warrants were issued.  Thus, you can see that this is a serious workload for the court.

So, in December 2016, Ottawa County launched a set of ODR tools to reduce the occurrence of show-cause hearings and improve compliance with child support orders.

One of these ODR tools is a proactive, SMS text notification to noncustodial parents “when their case fits the criteria for show cause” determined by FOC staff who first reviews a MiCSES report showing cases with no payment for at least 45 days and eliminates cases for which the noncustodial parent is incarcerated, deceased, receiving Social Security disability payments, or deported to a country without a reciprocity agreement with the United States. The remaining cases are candidates for show-cause hearings, which, before 2016, would have been immediately scheduled. (editor’s note – this would seem to be a good candidate for an ai-rules based search system in the future?)

Now, however, Ottawa County’s FOC transmits an SMS text message to noncustodial parents, warning them about the noncompliance and inviting them to meet with FOC investigators to discuss their ability to pay, any changes in employment, and available resources for securing employment.

Noncustodial parents who are at risk of a show-cause hearing are first given an opportunity to engage in an information-gathering and problem-solving session with the FOC.

The results are impressive:

The number of show-cause hearings has been reduced by almost a quarter. By the end of 2017, Ottawa County’s Family Court Division scaled back its show-cause calendar from every Friday to two Fridays each month, freeing precious judicial resources for other family court cases.
If a noncustodial parent fails to heed the FOC’s text message or achieve an acceptable plan with the FOC investigator, or the case is scheduled for a show-cause hearing. At this point, two additional ODR tools are improving the number of successful show-cause hearings:

1. an SMS text reminder of the upcoming show-cause hearing (reducing the number of failures to appear) and, 
2. a hearing check-in system improving the speed and effectiveness of prehearing settlement conferences with FOC investigators.  

Ottawa County has also slashed the number of child-support-related arrest warrants by a third. This significantly eases the burden on the Ottawa County Sheriff, both in workload for the three deputies embedded with the FOC team and in jail overcrowding.

Most important, though, is that approximately 50 parents every month will not be subject to possible arrest and detention for failure to pay child support and will, instead, be in the community, able to earn income and parent their children. Perhaps the most impressive outcome has been Ottawa County’s 28 percent increase in child support collections benefiting those receiving families.
For court leaders and the FOC team, surpassing the federal government’s 80 percent collections threshold is the realization of a long-term goal that had previously eluded them. It will also unlock the potential for additional federal incentive payments to the county.

And by comparison, the program did compare the effectiveness of traditional mail notification that has been much less effective compared to text messages.

Congratulations Ottawa County. 

The full article is included in this year’s Trends publication (available in full here).