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Chapter 2 - Child Support Requirements

INTRODUCTION 2.1

This chapter applies to MA, TANF, and POWER assistance units that include a dependent child who has an absent parent. In the case of MA, the head of the unit must assign the right to medical support for a dependent child while in the case of TANF and POWER, the head of the unit must assign the right to both medical and child support. Medical support is defined as the absent parent's voluntary or court-ordered agreement to be responsible for the payment of his/her child's medical expenses. A signed Combined Application (CA) serves as the assignment of child and/or medical support rights. If a dependent child subsequently becomes part of another assistance unit, the head of the new unit is subject to the child/medical support assignment requirement.

The medical support cooperation requirement applies only to AR and AX program types. It does not apply, however, to pregnant women.

The SSR will send Form 1288/1288A "Notice to Child Support Agency" to the Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED) for each MA*, TANF, and POWER applicant/recipient who will be required to cooperate with paternity and child support establishment, child support enforcement, medical support enforcement, and collection. In addition, the Department will send CSED Form 886 Information Exchange for each TANF and MA applicant/recipient who has self-identified a past, present, or future risk of domestic violence. CSED will place the form in the case file of the applicant/recipient and will refer to this in making its good cause determination. An SSR may learn of domestic violence issues through the preliminary assessment, information provided by the vendor, or other collateral contacts.

*Customers applying for MA using the D.C. Healthy Families mail-in application will be referred to CSED on a "volunteers first" basis. Those customers that indicate that they would like CSED assistance quickly will be referred immediately. IMA will maintain information on other customers, but nor refer them to CSED until CSED requests this information. In this way, IMA and CSED will prioritize those cases in which CSED assistance would most likely result in the collection of child support.

The SSR should refer assistance units required to assign medical and/or child support rights to CSED. These assistance units must cooperate with CSED unless there is good cause for non-cooperation. Cooperation may include any of the following:

 identifying and locating the absent parent,  establishing the paternity of a child born out-of-wedlock,  securing a court order for medical and/or child support of the child, and  enforcing and/or modifying the support order.

If the assistance unit claims good cause for non-cooperation, CSED will evaluate the claim and inform IMA of its finding.

To validate a claim of good cause, CSED may:

 decide the claim based on information provided by the applicant/recipient, or  decide to conduct a further investigation to verify the claim