Passing legislation to strengthen child support enforcement and update support guidelines is a VaNOW priority. In the vast majority of cases, child support is a woman’s issue; 88% of custodial parents in Virginia are women. In Virginia, the Division of Child Support Enforcement http://www.dss.virginia.gov/family/dcse.html handles 363,000 cases, with 484,000 children. These children represent almost one-quarter of Virginia’s child population. The size of the child support problem is enormous: $2.3 billion is due in past child support.

Virginia is doing a number of things right in order to shore up child support. Here are a few statewide initiatives that are reaping success:

·        The Division of Child Support Enforcement (DCSE) maintains an interactive Internet site that provides updated payment and case information to custodial and non-custodial parents. Over 7,000 customers visit the site each day.

·        Virginia participates in a “New Hire Reporting” program that requires new employees to be scrutinized for past due child support. Since its inception in 1993, approximately $89.8 million has been collected as a direct result of this program.

·        The Virginia $4Kids Program allows child support payments to be made through the DCSE website or by toll-free phone call. 

·        In 2005 Virginia initiated a program to publicize delinquent non-custodial parents with outstanding warrants. Pictures of these individuals were posted in newspapers in Tidewater, Roanoke, and Richmond. To date, 63 non-custodial parents have been arrested.  Pictures can also be found on the DCSE website at http://www.dss.virginia.gov/family/wanted.html