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| Erin Frisch |
The Office of Child Support director, Erin Frisch, welcomed everyone and set the tone by relating her own journey on the topic of incarcerated parents. Her view evolved from a feeling that incarcerated and formerly incarcerated parents should not receive special attention – to a realization that within this population lies an opportunity for the child support program to significantly improve upon its mission of “engaging parents to improve children’s lives.”
A Month in the Life
The big excitement of the day was a reentry simulation coordinated by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) representatives, titled, “Returning Citizens: A Month in the Life.”[1]
During the simulation, participants role-played four weeks in the life of a returning citizen, focusing on tasks designated to their assigned persona. Some of the tasks included: obtaining employment; checking in with a parole officer regularly; and visiting a clinic for urinalysis drug screening as a condition of parole. Simulation participants were quickly frustrated by lines too long to complete tasks within the timeframe allowed, and even more so by unforeseen obstacles such as not having the correct paperwork to accomplish a task, not having transportation to move from one agency to another, and being treated unfairly or with hostility by the simulation’s agency actors.
With a sense of the overwhelming burden that is everyday life for those recently released from incarceration, presentations on more specific topics began.
Federal Collaboration
A few speakers from the federal level presented on “Working with Incarcerated Parents.” Speakers included Jeffrey Stocks and Ryann Moore from the federal OCSE, and Matt Hibbard from the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). They shared how the relationship developed between OCSE and BOP, and why that collaboration is important. Jeffrey Stocks described the huge number of families across the U.S. impacted by parental incarceration:[2]
- Nearly 60% of all incarcerated individuals are parents.
- 90% will be released back to the community.
- Roughly 2.7 million children have a parent in prison at any given time – that is 1 in every 28 children.
- More than 10 million children have had a parent in prison (past or present).
Local Grant-Funded Collaboration
A panel discussion about a recent Lansing-area project uncovered tangible possibilities for friend of the court offices to form collaborative relationships locally. Panelists explained lessons learned in their talk, “Financial Empowerment for Incarcerated Parents.” The panelists included project partners: Robert Engel, Outreach Specialist with the City of Lansing, Harry Moxley, Director of the Ingham County Friend of the Court and Deputy Court Administrator, and Crissa Blankenburg, Reentry Specialist with the Michigan Department of Corrections.
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| Robert Engel |
Robert Engel outlined the overall history and trajectory of the project. The City of Lansing Office of Financial Empowerment was awarded a grant from the Capital Region Community Foundation in 2016. The grant project – named “Financially Empowering Offenders by Avoiding Common Pitfalls” – assisted incarcerated individuals in the Lansing area with financial concerns during pre-sentence and post-release processes. Addressing issues during these stages can lessen the financial struggles individuals often experience upon release, therefore increasing the likelihood of success for these at-risk individuals.
The project focused on identity theft, safe places to keep financial assets during incarceration, and child support issues. The project was successful across the board, but the most profound results came from the child support work.
The project worked with 145 recently incarcerated parents and 77 re-entering parents. The child support work focused on helping these parents seek appropriate modification[3] of their child support obligations to ensure obligations were based on parents’ actual, current ability to pay (“right-sizing” orders). Project partners also educated parents about their option to request forgiveness of state-owed arrears. In total, $209,178 of state-owed arrears was eligible for forgiveness.
The project team also tracked payment patterns for the 6 months before and after incarceration for the 77 re-entering parents:
This project took a very proactive approach to incarcerated parents, providing financial counseling when the individual’s financial situation was changing. Financial counseling appears to be a key element of success. Here the Office of Financial Empowerment helped navigate around the “common pitfalls,” complexities of life simultaneously dictated by child support and corrections. Partners learned that lasting progress can be made when multiple agencies work together toward a common goal of strengthening families.
The team plans to continue its work past grant funding and encourages other regions to develop similar working relationships. Questions about the project can be directed to Robert Engel at Amber.Paxton@lansingmi.gov.
Also, the City of Lansing published a short video (above) with testimony from project partners and participants.
Current Statewide Collaboration
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| Crissa Blankenburg |
All Michigan friend of the court offices have the opportunity to work more effectively with MDOC, the topic of Crissa Blankenburg’s presentation to the forum, “Offender Success Starts with Collaboration.”
Blankenburg explained that the end goal of MDOC’s Offender Success model is to reduce crime by ensuring that every person released from Michigan state prisons can obtain employment and self-sufficiency – desired outcomes that overlap with the child support program’s focus on parents supporting their children. To meet this goal, MDOC is seeking collaborative relationships with other agencies.
Within the Offender Success model, Blankenburg currently leads a project called “Clean Slate,” which clears the path to success for offenders soon to be released from one of the state’s two Vocational Villages. At the Vocational Village sites, offenders receive education and job-specific training to set them up for employment at a living wage upon release. MDOC’s employment counselors and job developers engage with potential employers to match offender skill sets with employers’ needs. Early on, Clean Slate recognized major obstacles to success that included suspended driver’s licenses and lack of knowledge about child support obligations, among other issues.
Because Blankenburg already had some exposure to child support matters from Lansing’s grant project, she seized the opportunity to ask for guidance from OCS and FOCB in implementing new MDOC processes to help soon-to-be parolees understand their child support obligations and options better.
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| Left to right: Shawn Tylutki (MDOC–Vocational Village), Nicole Reinsch (MDOC), Amy Lindholm (SCAO–Friend of the Court Bureau), Erica Stoll (OCS–Central Operations), Crissa Blankenburg (MDOC–Offender Reentry), Ryan Powell (MDOC–Offender Reentry), Melanie Cascaddan (MDOC–Parole), Clinton Auer (MDOC–Parole). |
Conversations in a collaborative group setting continue monthly and have already resulted in better cross-agency understanding and sharing of contact information between MDOC and child support agencies. Future plans include a process by which MDOC will notify friends of the court about a payer’s expected release, expected address upon release, expected employment upon release, plus contact information for the facility coordinator.[4]
Blankenburg closed with, “Together we can empower this population to take their place as returning citizens focused on doing the right thing … and that in turn yields positive benefits for their families and communities.”
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[1] Jeffrey Stocks, Program Specialist with OCSE, explained to participants that the simulation could be conducted for other groups in the future. The Friend of the Court Association recently ran the simulation again on February 22, 2018, at its annual winter conference.
[2] Statistics from the OCSE presentation, “Bureau of Prisons & Child Support Collaboration.” Association for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement. Revised February 22, 2018.
[3] “Appropriate modification,” meaning according to guidelines set forth in the Michigan Child Support Formula, MCL 552.605.
[4] SCAO Administrative Memorandum 2018-01, Adjusting Current Support Due to Incarceration. MCR 3.218 provides for access and disclosure of friend of the court records. If a governmental agency provides services to a parent or a parent has an application for services pending with the agency, MCR 3.218(B) allows an FOC office to disclose nonconfidential FOC records to that agency. Some FOC records are also IV-D records. MCR 3.218(C) permits disclosure of confidential and nonconfidential records to other agencies “as necessary for the friend of the court to implement the state’s plan under Title IV, Part D of the Social Security Act, 42 USC 651 et seq., or as required by the court, state law, or regulation that is consistent with this state’s IV-D plan.”
