By
Jane Hess
MSC Public Information Office
Muskegon
County’s creative and collaborative approach to administering child support has
other states taking notice.
In
2012, Muskegon’s prosecuting attorney and chief judge determined that the
public in Muskegon County would be better served by having their offices
combine resources to provide in one location the services that were formerly
provided separately.
Sandra
Vanderhyde, Deputy Court Administrator of the Muskegon County Circuit Court,
has been coordinating efforts between the court and the prosecuting attorney’s
office, and hopes their successful model will spread to other counties.
“We are hoping that the trend is moving
toward collaborating to share existing resources in one office so that the same
people are involved throughout the life of the case,” she said.
Right
now in Michigan, the establishment function in many courts still lies in the
prosecuting attorney’s office. But recent legislation allows the Friend of the
Court (FOC) to assume these responsibilities.
To
that end, Muskegon County has developed SEED—the Support Establishment and
Enforcement Docket. SEED’s objective is to address before a support order is
established, the main barriers that prevent parents from being actively
involved in their children’s lives and prevent them from financially supporting
their children. The goal is to assist
parents in finding solutions so they can provide the much needed financial and
emotional support for their children.
“In
Muskegon, we are not just looking at getting parents a job,” Vanderhyde explained. “We are focusing on the whole person and
family, and all of their needs, because it could be much more basic or much
more complex than just needing a job.”
She
added, “There is a reason that they cannot get a job or keep a job. That is why
we have to help with the basics.”
In
October 2016, Muskegon County received a grant and created an additional program
called PASS— Procedural Action to Self-Sufficiency—to improve collecting child
support post-judgment.
Through
PASS, a clinician will work with parents who have orders to identify the
barriers that prevent them from complying with their order. After the barriers
are identified, a case action plan will be put in place to help mitigate or
remove the barriers that are preventing the parent from complying with the
court order.
Programs
like SEED and PASS are necessary, Vanderhyde says, because the holistic
approach brings evidence-based results.
“I
think we focus on the holistic approach because there are many barriers facing
the population that we work with,” Vanderhyde remarked. “If these programs did
not exist, the issues would still exist, so we have to do something more.”
Vanderhyde
has become something of a national expert on the subject. She presented a talk
called “From Choppy Seas to a Day at the Beach: Problem Solving Alternatives to
Civil Contempt” in May 2016 at the annual Eastern Regional Interstate Child
Support Association (ERICSA) Conference in South Carolina.
And
after receiving the grant in October 2016, she traveled to Washington D.C., to be
part of a dialog about different state’s programs. The holistic nature of
Muskegon’s approach, combined with the implementation of innovative programs
such as SEED and PASS, have set it apart from most other programs across the
nation as “cutting-edge.”
This
year, she has been invited to speak at the Indiana Prosecuting Attorney Counsel’s
Child Support Conference in June. Vanderhyde plans to present on “What you need
to know about the legal system in Michigan,” as well as Muskegon County’s
holistic approach to child support establishment.
Vanderhyde
said she thinks it is important for states to share their models with one
another.
“I
think it will be fun to share with Indiana the direction that Michigan is
heading,” Vanderhyde said. “From going to the ERICSA Conference and sharing
experiences with other states, it does seem that this holistic approach is
starting to become the new direction, nationwide, and that is exciting.”
