The federal government is moving forward with a significant initiative to strengthen child support outcomes by directly linking them to employment opportunities for noncustodial parents. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) has announced a request for public comments on its proposed data collection plan for the "Next Generation Child Support Employment Services Demonstration," or NextGen. This multi-year evaluation, stemming from grants and waivers issued in August 2024, seeks to understand how integrated employment services can lead to more consistent child support payments, with findings intended to shape future federal and local approaches to child support enforcement and parental support.
The NextGen Initiative: A Dual Objective
The core objective of the NextGen demonstration is two-fold: first, to enhance the employment and earning capacity of noncustodial parents, and second, to increase the regularity and amount of child support payments they make. This approach recognizes that stable employment is often a prerequisite for consistent financial support for children. OCSE launched this five-year project by awarding eight grants and two section 1115 waivers to ten distinct child support agencies. These sites are tasked with providing employment and other supportive services to noncustodial parents within their jurisdictions.
Diverse Sites for Comprehensive Insights
The ten chosen sites for the NextGen demonstration represent a diverse cross-section of geographic and administrative contexts, aiming to provide a broad understanding of program efficacy and challenges. These include:
- Los Angeles County, California
- Sacramento and Stanislaus Counties, California
- Cherokee Nation
- Lac Courte Oreilles
- Louisiana
- Minnesota
- Nooksack (waiver recipient)
- Ponca (waiver recipient)
- Virginia
- Washington
The inclusion of tribal nations and a mix of state and county agencies allows the evaluation to capture variations in local policy, economic factors, and service delivery models, providing a richer data set for analysis. The project commenced in August 2024, with the first 18 months dedicated to planning and piloting, followed by three and a half years of full implementation. Throughout this period, the sites will receive technical assistance to aid in program design, adaptation, and delivery.
Evaluating Impact: Implementation Study
A central component of the NextGen initiative is its rigorous evaluation framework, which comprises both an implementation study and an outcomes study. The implementation study is designed to document the practicalities of program operation. Its goal is to understand the variations in how the NextGen programs are structured and delivered across the different sites. This includes examining diverse elements such as program designs, strategies for enrolling participants, the specific employment and child support services offered, the nature of partnerships formed with other organizations, and the influence of local policy or economic conditions.
Key data collection activities for the implementation study will involve:
- Utilizing a Management Information System (MIS) to track the characteristics of participants who consent to be part of the study and monitor their engagement with NextGen services.
- Conducting semi-structured interviews with child support staff and personnel from partner organizations to gather perspectives on program delivery and challenges.
- Engaging in semi-structured interviews with program participants themselves to capture their direct experiences and feedback on the NextGen program.
This information will be crucial in contextualizing the outcomes study's quantitative findings, offering insights into successful startup, ongoing operation, and sustainability strategies for similar child support-led employment initiatives in the future.
Evaluating Impact: Outcomes Study
Complementing the implementation study, the outcomes study will quantitatively measure the direct impact of the NextGen programs. Its primary goal is to assess changes in key metrics such as participants' employment rates, earning levels, and most critically, the amounts and consistency of their child support payments.
To achieve this, the outcomes study will draw on several robust data sources:
- Child support administrative data will be utilized to track changes in child support orders, actual payments made, existing child support debt, and enforcement history for NextGen participants. This data will be analyzed for the 12-month periods both preceding and following a participant's enrollment in the program.
- Data from the National Directory of New Hires will be collected to provide comprehensive reporting on participants' employment status and earnings, offering an objective measure of labor market success.
- Baseline demographic and programmatic information for participants who consent to the evaluation will also be collected and analyzed from the MIS.
Collectively, these data sources will enable OCSE to determine whether the NextGen programs are achieving their intended effects of improving economic stability for noncustodial parents and, consequently, increasing consistent child support for families.
Public Input Sought for Data Collection
As part of its commitment to transparency and effective governance, OCSE is soliciting public comments on the proposed data collection activities. This 60-day comment period, closing on July 6, 2026, invites feedback on several critical aspects:
- The necessity and practical utility of the proposed information collection for the agency's functions.
- The accuracy of the agency's estimated burden on respondents for participating in the data collection.
- The overall quality, utility, and clarity of the information intended to be collected.
- Suggestions for minimizing the burden on respondents, including through automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
This public engagement is a standard, yet vital, step in federal information collection processes, ensuring that data gathering is efficient, relevant, and as unobtrusive as possible for all parties involved.
Broader Implications and Future Trajectories
The NextGen demonstration and its comprehensive evaluation hold significant promise for informing federal and local policy on child support and workforce development. The insights gained regarding best practices and challenges in integrating child support services with employment support could lead to more effective program models nationwide. The findings will be particularly valuable for local, state, and tribal child support agencies seeking to design and implement their own employment programs tailored to community needs. This initiative represents a strategic effort to address underlying economic barriers that often impede consistent child support, moving beyond traditional enforcement to a more holistic approach that supports both parents and children. The ongoing analysis will illuminate not only what works, but also how to implement these programs sustainably and effectively across diverse operational environments.
