Project Description

The national evaluation of the impact of the Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration, commissioned by the Office of Administration of Children & Families, will focus on factors such as the amount and regularity of child support payments, child support debt, the use of enforcement actions, and the employment and earnings of parents who owe support. Eligible noncustodial parents will be randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The program group will receive services designed to increase parent’s experience of fairness in the child support process. These services include case conferencing, early intervention, enhanced investigation, case conferencing, setting income-based orders, timely modification, and employment services.

Partnering with MDRC, DIR will conduct a 12-month follow-up survey of approximately 2,400 study participants. The purpose of the survey is to measure the extent to which study participants interacted with the child support program and court system during the 12 months following enrollment, understand perceptions of fairness with regard to these processes, examine the relationships with the other parent and children, obtain demographic information, and gain other information not available through administrative data.