Engaging Community Partners and Making an ‘Impact’

By Tony McDowell, Deputy Director, Genesee County Friend of the Court

Genesee County Friend of the Court's Tony McDowell (center)
speaks to fathers enrolled in the IMPACT program.

As court employees and child support professionals, we have a very specific skill set that we do well – we know the child support formula. We know the tools we have at our disposal to enforce a child support order, we understand the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA),[1] and we have a general understanding of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA).[2] We can mediate, recommend, modify, enforce, and collect. All of these are important skills we can use to collect support, assist families, and improve the lives of our clients. However, sometimes we run into an area that, whether due to funding limitations or staffing limitations, is not in our skill set.

At these times, it is crucial to have community partners who believe in helping the same families we serve and who also have a strong relationship with the court. The most recent pilot project in Genesee County is a result of recognizing our limitations and embracing our relationships with our community partners.

In 2014, the Genesee County FOC began an early paternity establishment program called ADAPT (Acquiring DNA and Paternity Timely). The FOC staff met with parents at their prenatal appointments to discuss their paternity establishment options and briefly explain the child support program. The program resulted in contacts with the Genesee County Health Department’s Healthy Start program, hospital staff members, and other community agencies.

Later, in 2015, when the Healthy Start program wanted to focus on engaging fathers with their services, they reached out to their community partners, including the FOC, Head Start, STRIVE (Support and Training Results in Valuable Employees, a vocational training program), and Shon Hart, the director of InvolvedDad, a responsible fatherhood program in Genesee County. This collection of organizations and individuals that share the same goal of assisting families in Genesee County resulted in a more comprehensive web of resources and new connections. 

InvolvedDad’s mission is about strengthening families through empowerment, motivation, education, and providing resources to fathers. When Hart wanted to expand InvolvedDad’s scope to positively impact more fathers in the community, he reached out to known community partners – the Genesee County FOC and Flint STRIVE.

InvolvedDad’s vision was created to connect with fathers who had disengaged with their children and with the court. The FOC could identify the families who needed assistance, while InvolvedDad and STRIVE could provide the tools to make the families more successful. InvolvedDad’s IMPACT program would connect the existing resources in the community to better assist families.

The IMPACT program involved a rigorous series of bi-weekly workshops over a seven-month period. Fathers worked with facilitators to better understand the importance of both physical presence in their child(ren)’s live(s) and financial support.

In addition to providing a safe place for open dialogue on this important issue, the IMPACT program provided fathers with the tools and strategies to become supportive fathers in the long term, both financially and emotionally. Finally, to ease the transition, IMPACT provided temporary financial assistance to the family.

The Genesee County FOC contacted 150 families in which the father was not paying support and appeared to be disengaged. All of the families were advised of a unique opportunity to voluntarily join the IMPACT program, where they would receive assistance to re-engage the father. Initially, 18 families enrolled in the IMPACT program. Each father entered into an agreement to meet the requirements of the IMPACT program and his support obligation. In return, he would get the resources and assistance from InvolvedDad. Violation of the agreement would mean removal from the program and loss of the resources provided by the program.

After five months of intensive work in the IMPACT program, there are now 12 fathers successfully working with the program. Several fathers who left IMPACT did so because they became employed and could no longer meet the program’s requirements for attendance and homework. The fathers who remain are all actively engaged with the program and are consistently paying their child support. 

As with most successful programs, the real benefit is told by individual stories. Two of the fathers in the program have been able to engage with their child for the first time in over two years. One father discussed how he never felt comfortable sharing feelings with his child and now has decided to be more expressive and has developed a stronger bond with his son. 

Even with the program not yet complete and much more long term evaluation required, it is clear that the goal of the IMPACT program has been met, at least for some fathers, with some participants engaging with their children in ways that had not been accomplished before. 

To achieve its goals, the IMPACT program had to provide intensive services that focused on:

• responsible fatherhood;
• the importance of emotional engagement;
• job skills readiness.

These are services that could not have been provided by the FOC for multiple reasons. Yet, by and through the partnership with InvolvedDad, STRIVE, and the Genesee County FOC, these important services were provided to families with FOC cases – engaging these fathers with their children and the child support program, and ultimately making these families stronger.

While the IMPACT program is a strong example of what can be done by providing intensive services and engaging with families, it is an excellent example of the importance of developing a strong network of community partners. Once the network of community partners is established, the next and most important step is to realize which partner or combination of partners can bring the greatest IMPACT.

Tony McDowell has served the Genesee County Friend of the Court in his role as deputy director since October of 2016. He previously worked as staff Attorney in the office and as a Judicial Advisory Assistant in the Genesee County Circuit Court. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Michigan State University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Toledo College of Law.

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[1] The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 contains a provision requiring employers to report information about newly hired employees. This timely provision of information enables more effective enforcement of child support orders. More information about PRWORA and its impact on the child support program is available at: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/resource/the-personal-responsibility-and-work-opportunity-reconcilliation-act.

[2] The 2008 Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) allows other states, foreign countries, and tribes to work together in the collection of court-ordered child support. More information about UIFSA is available at: http://courts.mi.gov/Administration/SCAO/Resources/Documents/Publications/pamphlets/focb/PSA29-Text.pdf.