An Awakening – Signs of Life after a Long Winter

By Steve Capps, Director, SCAO Friend of the Court Bureau

On March 10, 2020, Governor Whitmer proclaimed a state of emergency in Michigan.  Overnight, everything changed.  Support specialists had new case referrals suspended, and friend of the court (FOC) and prosecuting attorney staff were sent home – often with little to no contact to their work.

March in Michigan is still winter.  On March 10, there is still more darkness than light, and the light this year was frequently accompanied by ill-tempered weather.  High storm winds, one of the latest snow events in recent history, and record-breaking low temperatures for spring in Michigan soon followed.

Despite the harsh weather, there have been signs of new growth.  Crocuses appeared as they have every year as the darkness of winter turned to the light of spring.  Green began to appear, and the world – once frozen in place by the cold –is emerging into the warmth.

So too, the child support world is awakening, and doing so in ways we had not imagined a short two months ago, as we can see from data shared by the Office of Child Support.

Customers have found new ways to contact us.  Visits to the MiChildSupport portal expanded by almost 300,000 between March and April, from 745,937 to 1,031,742 visits.  E-mails sent from the portal climbed from 90,725 the month before to 152,756:

A record-breaking number of new users (39,864) opted in to MiChildSupport e-mail notifications in April, nearly a 28 percent increase.  And there were 4,900 two-way communication questions asked in April, up from 2,770 the month before.  Today, 35 FOC offices and 12 prosecuting attorney offices participate in two-way communication.

Child support professionals are also reconnecting.  At the lowest point this year, only 503 county users were logging into MiCSES daily.  Today, remote access has been established for many county users, and that number is over 1,100 and growing.  While still below normal numbers, this growth shows that the program is healthy and re-emerging after an especially challenging winter season.

Here’s to spring; here’s to growth.  Here’s to Michigan’s child support professionals.

Steve Capps is director of the Friend of the Court Bureau. His staff is the primary source of management support for Michigan's friend of the court offices and family division courts and advises the Michigan Supreme Court and its staff regarding state and federal statutes and regulations that affect family law issues. Before coming to SCAO, Mr. Capps served as a friend of the court for Branch County and as a referee and a domestic relations mediator for the circuit courts in Calhoun and Branch counties. A past president of the Branch County Bar Association, he currently serves as a member of the program leadership group for Michigan's child support program.