SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) is recognizing August as Child Support Awareness Month, marking historic progress on key performance metrics as the state celebrates the milestone 50th year of the program. Illinois’ Child Support Services program is entering its next decade with a goal of addressing the needs of the families it serves more holistically, including providing additional assistance to the parents who pay support. The mission of the program is to improve the lives of children and create a more stable and successful future for families in the state of Illinois.
“This year’s Child Support Awareness Month is a chance to celebrate a milestone in this program’s history, reflect on how it has served families in Illinois over the past 50 years and recognize the program’s improvement over the years,” said HFS Director Elizabeth M. Whitehorn. “With its future focused on innovations and whole-family care, Child Support Services will only continue to improve the lives of Illinois families for years to come.”
Illinois’ Child Support Services program has made great progress by improving its performance as measured by federal key performance indicators (KPIs) established and monitored by the Office of Child Support Services (OCSS). For the first time in the state’s history, Illinois ranked among the top 30 states nationally for comprehensive child support services overall. Illinois is also now 16th nationally for paternity establishment percentage, its highest ever ranking. This metric represents the number of children in the state with paternity established or acknowledged divided by the number of children born to unmarried parents for the prior year.
“The future focus for Child Support Services will remain on the wellbeing of entire families,” said HFS Division of Child Support Services Administrator Bryan Tribble. “This year, the Family Resource Connections program became a permanent part of efforts to shift focus to a whole-family approach that will ultimately better serve the children of Illinois. The Department is fully committed to continuing to advance the wellbeing of families moving forward.”
Child Support Services (CSS) is taking the important step of making permanent the Family Resource Connections (FRC) program, a groundbreaking initiative that provides individualized solutions to meet the needs of parents and ultimately foster better outcomes for families. FRC is now fully incorporated into CSS, after being established as a pilot program, and will continue to grow over the next several years. FRC offers services to both parents who provide and who receive support, including veterans’ services, career and training opportunities, and legal assistance. The initiative supplements other CSS and enforcement programs in order to achieve better outcomes for families, a goal being met as evidenced by a historic level of a performance.
CSS serves more than 330,000 Illinois families and more than 500,000 children. More than $1 billion is collected annually on behalf of the families served. An amendment to the Social Security Act in 1974 by the U.S. Congress to create Title IV-D to enforce the child support financial obligations of non-custodial parents marked the inception of the program. August is designated as Child Support Awareness Month because it marks the anniversary of the program’s establishment.
Child Support Services has regional offices in Aurora, Champaign, Chicago, Collinsville, Joliet, Marion, Peoria, Rockford and Springfield. Find out more about Illinois Child Support Services here.