By Carol Bealor

According to statistics collected by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, one in three children are served by the Michigan Child Support Program.  One in three.  Let that sink in for a second.

That means that most likely you or someone you know has a child support order in place for a child.  This also means that most likely you or someone you know received communication from your local Friend of the Court Office (FOC) outlining services the FOC can offer.

But do you know exactly what the FOC does?  Most people think of child support when they think of the FOC.  While the FOC does handle child support issues, the FOC does so much more to help children and families.

The Mission of the Cass County FOC is “Serving & empowering families to make children’s lives better.”  Child support, custody and parenting time are crucial issues for families impacting mothers, fathers, and children on a daily basis.

The Cass County FOC wants to make sure that you are aware of services offered as well as the primary issues that tend to impact families raising children in separate households.  As one way to do this, the Cass County FOC has teamed up with Leader Publications to run a monthly column entitled “Your Cass County Friend of the Court” to keep you up-to-date on critical issues impacting families and their children.

As this monthly column gets underway, let’s start with the basics – just what is the Friend of the Court?

The FOC is one of several agencies in the state that work together to administer Michigan’s Child Support Program.  Other partners that work together in the child support program include: The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Office of Child Support (OCS), and the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

The FOC along with its other child support partners receive federal funding to carry out child support activities, called Title IV-D funding.  Title IV-D funding reimburses up to 66% of approved child support activities carried out by the FOC and other child support partners.  This allows local units of government, primarily counties, to leverage Title IV-D funding, to provide much needed services to local residents.

One of the FOC’s primary roles in the Child Support Program is to provide accounting and enforcement services to families who choose to receive FOC services (that’s right you can choose to receive FOC services or opt out of them … but that is a topic for another column).

Some of the FOC’s accounting and enforcement duties include:

Entering Court orders into MICSES (the computerized Michigan Child Support Enforcement System)

• Maintaining accurate financial records for child support cases by utilization of MICSES
• Initiating enforcement when a payer fails to comply with his or her child support order
• Conducting account audits to ensure that account balances are accurate
• Reviewing and modifying support orders every 36 months, as directed by the Court, or upon request of a party where there has been a substantial change in circumstances

The Friend of the Court is responsible for management of a child support case until the last child on the support order turns 18 or if the support order directs, until the last child of the support order graduates high school.

In addition to child support duties, the FOC has an even bigger role in the Child Support Program.  The FOC is the “customer service face” of the Child Support program.  FOC’s provide local customer service to anyone touched by a child support order including parties to a case, employers who receive income withholding orders or employment verification requests, and even to other partners in the child support program.  The FOC is the front line local contact for those receiving services through the child support program to assist them with them with issues that may arise in their court case including helping them communicate with other child support program partners when needed.

Each FOC has a Director, such as myself, that supervises the FOC staff and is responsible for the general administration, budgeting, staffing, policies, and procedures of the office.  Within the Cass County FOC, we also have an Attorney Referee, a Deputy Friend of the Court, a Financial Case Management Division, and an Enforcement Division.

All of the services that the FOC provides to families and all of the issues that arise in the underlying court cases, which result in orders for support, custody and parenting time, can be overwhelming to understand and navigate.  That’s why I hope that our monthly column will help introduce you to these services – and many others provided by the Cass County FOC – as well as make you familiar with the dedicated community members who are working to provide those services within your local FOC.

If you have questions about the FOC that you think would be helpful to address in future columns, please send them to the FOC email address:  foc@cassco.org

 

We look forward to talking with you next month about the Cass County FOC’s Parenting Academy.