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Program at ESS-Wichita gets major federal grant

By Melodie Woerman

Editor, The Harvest

Episcopal Social Services of Wichita has received a $193,600 grant from the federal government to turn its child support program into a study of what works to provide needed financial help for children.

The award was made in September by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through its Administration for Children and Families. It was one of six such grants made to explore how to increase child support.

According to Sandra Lyon, ESS executive director, the grant will take over the agency’s Support for Children program. In the past it has provided assistance to non-custodial parents to help them gain needed education and employment training to make them better able to pay child support. Clients have been referred to the program for non-payment of court-ordered child support.

Under this grant, ESS will do research on what is the best way to increase the amount of child support collected. The 200 new clients in the program will be divided into four groups of 50 each, Lyon said. Each will receive different services, and researchers will measure which intervention has the greatest impact over the 17-month life of the grant.

The four areas of services will include:

• current ESS services, including employment and education assistance
• legal education offered by an attorney, to help people better represent themselves when they appear in court
• arrears forgiveness, in which a portion of their past-due child support is forgiven
• a combination of legal education and arrears forgiveness

Lyon said that current program clients will be turned over to case workers with the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, since the research nature of the grant requires starting with all new clients.

Under the existing program, ESS has collected an average of $1.6 million in child support a year, usually serving 200 to 700 clients at a time.

Lyon said she is excited about the opportunity to learn what practices will be most effective. “There is the potential to have a real impact and result in more child support being collected,” she said.