Grants to States for access and visitation programs.

[Samson2005]

Hi. Is anyone familiar with this?


TITLE 42 > CHAPTER 7 > SUBCHAPTER IV > Part D > § 669b

§ 669b. Grants to States for access and visitation programs.


(a) In general
The Administration for Children and Families shall make grants under this section to enable States to establish and administer programs to support and facilitate noncustodial parents' access to and visitation of their children, by means of activities including mediation (both voluntary and mandatory), counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement (including monitoring, supervision and neutral drop-off and pickup), and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.
(b) Amount of grant
The amount of the grant to be made to a State under this section for a fiscal year shall be an amount equal to the lesser of—
(1) 90 percent of State expenditures during the fiscal year for activities described in subsection (a) of this section; or
(2) the allotment of the State under subsection (c) of this section for the fiscal year.
(c) Allotments to States
(1) In general
The allotment of a State for a fiscal year is the amount that bears the same ratio to $10,000,000 for grants under this section for the fiscal year as the number of children in the State living with only 1 biological parent bears to the total number of such children in all States.
(2) Minimum allotment
The Administration for Children and Families shall adjust allotments to States under paragraph (1) as necessary to ensure that no State is allotted less than—
(A) $50,000 for fiscal year 1997 or 1998; or
(B) $100,000 for any succeeding fiscal year.
(d) No supplantation of State expenditures for similar activities
A State to which a grant is made under this section may not use the grant to supplant expenditures by the State for activities specified in subsection (a) of this section, but shall use the grant to supplement such expenditures at a level at least equal to the level of such expenditures for fiscal year 1995.
(e) State administration
Each State to which a grant is made under this section—
(1) may administer State programs funded with the grant, directly or through grants to or contracts with courts, local public agencies, or nonprofit private entities;
(2) shall not be required to operate such programs on a statewide basis; and
(3) shall monitor, evaluate, and report on such programs in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary.

[MixedBag]

Where are you pulling this from?  USC Code?

And my first gut reaction was that grant money (heck any money) on a state sponsored program would be funneled to programs that the state/county provides for supervised situations.

In our county, I've seen the room where this is done and the schedule was up on the bulletin board.  It was set up like a living room with toys and books and a small video/TV for movies with a one-way window where parents can have time with their children (everyone had about an hour), in a supervised setting.

It doubled as the waiting room for the social workers.

[Samson2005]

Seems to be there to get quite alot accomplished....

States to establish and administer programs to support and facilitate noncustodial parents' access to and visitation of their children, by means of activities including:
mediation,
counseling,
education,
development of parenting plans,
visitation enforcement

yes it is USC

They are mandated to report each year how they use the money. Check this out:  

http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/forms/omb-0970-0204.pdf

[MixedBag]

interesting.....

knowledge is power -- and now what you gonna do with this knowledge???

[notnew]

The county where my case is heard is supposed to be one of the "premier" counties in the country and they have all these nice sounding programs and rules on the books, but they only work with cooperative parents who have the best interests of the children in mind AND obey court orders.

In my experience, the courts still are unprepared to deal with hostile parents and when they are faced with this, they revert to the old thought process of giving in to the one who bitches the loudest.

Lip service to get federal dollars in my opinion.

[Samson2005]

If the gov't would enforce visitation the way it does the other form of child support, parents would probably be alot more cooperative.

"they have all these nice sounding programs and rules on the books, but they only work with cooperative parents who have the best interests of the children in mind AND obey court orders."

Do they have enforcement task forces?

[notnew]

I don't know what an enforcement task force is. This county was one of the "cutting edge" counties that worked to develop the so called great programs that are being put in place all over the country now.

You are right about the enforcement thing. If hostile and uncooperative parents thought they would lose custody, CS, or have REAL consequences like jail, etc., for their behaviors, I too believe things would be very different.

My county also has parenting classes that every divorcing couple must attend. It tells you how to behave with the children, how oppositional behavior affects the kids, to not bad mouth the other parent, talk about court actions, etc. It interviews kids who have experienced PAS and other forms of hostile parenting where they discuss how they felt, etc. It tells you how to behave in the best interest of the child. It goes over oppositional case histories and give the $$ figure of the costs of these types of cases. In my opinion, these classes were a primer for my ex on how to behave badly and get away with it because she has done everything the classes said NOT to do. And, the court's have done little or nothing to address it. She is not afraid of a judge chastising her in court for acting like an ass. She puts on her I'm sorry act and then laughs in the hallway out side of the court room when the judge has bought her crap again.

It is my desire to never have to be victimized by this sytem that has all these great programs in place to help the kids. From what I have experienced, these programs have had no positive impact whatsoever.

I would love to be proven wrong and see at least one jurisdiction do the right thing. If one does it, then more will have to follow.

I hope for the sake of children of divorce of the future that what you have discovered is the real thing and not just a way to get more money into the system.

[Samson2005]

there is a program here called "The
Children's First Program" that costs $50 to enroll in that does what you described except for interviewing children.

If this state has been getting alot of money like they SHOULD be, there is nothing showing for it! For this state, it would be no surprise if it has been stolen.

Think of who benefits from the funds being misdirected... The thieves, the lawyers who take money from private individuals to prosecute and defend all the cases.  We know who loses... the little guy who has no voice and his children...

Grants from the fed to enforce visitation would allow officers to be hired for that specific reason and then the police would not have to make excuses to 50 NCP's each month for not enforcing the law. Their traffic ticket writing would go unhindered.

[Davy]

I think this Federal statue defines the criteria and Federal money allotment for the administration of a "Supervision"  program for children in the custody of the a state's Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) following the removal of a child(ren) from a biological parent.  

As a side note what this means is that the Federal tax dollars of Tx, Il, Al, and Maryland taxpayers supports job creation/economy in the state of Florida.  A couple of years ago, the published stats by state of the percentage of times DCFS caseworkers removed children from a home reflected that Florida led all states at 44% and I think IL was next highest state at either 7% or 9% and Tx was further down the list at 3% or 4%.  

In brief, here is how the the DCFS situation (doesn't) work in Florida.

OK. Mother of 2 children is on crack cocaine and father is in prison.
DCFS removes the children from the mother's home and mother goes to prison or rehab.  A DCFS court meets in the dark and assigns a new custodial parent (a grandmother if possible) without any evaluation and a family reunification plan is developed.  As time goes by, the mother is offered "Supervised visitation" for $42.00 each visit and subsequently pays the DCFS custodial parent CS (the state gets a % of that also) and I think repays the state of for all monies allocated as CS to the custodial parent while mother in rehab.

What you might discover with a thorough examination of the FL DCFS is they manage to create repeat customers (until death ) and from generation to generation.

We all pay dearly ......think about it before you plan another trip to Disney or choose a retirement home.

[Samson2005]

IT SEEMS TO ALWAYS BE THE SMALL PERSON WITHOUT A VOICE TO REALIZE AND VOCALIZE WRONGDOINGS.

Please excuse the caps! If you can't, you have capslockaphobia!

We need to know where all that money has been going all these years!

[Samson2005]

Davy,  

I never saw a word in there about the funds to be specifically directed to children in the custody of the gov't, only.

Instead, i think it applies to every state to see it is utilized in the manner it was brought to be.

I bet that when this becomes widespread knowledge, alot of things will change!

[Davy]

Samson,

I do not know if I'm correct except the statue specifically identified the Administration of DCFS.

In addition, this is not a new statue since it specifically noted the years 1995 and 1997.  There have been literally millions of children denied access to their father's since 1995 and many would have utilized this statue if it applied to them.  I think MB mentioned this situation in her post.

Believe me.  You do not want your child and yourself under the auspices of DCFS.  

[Samson2005]

Here is just a little bit I found on this page:

http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/archive/child_support_01.shtml

Excerpted from the 2000 House Ways and Means Green Book, "Child Support Enforcement Program"


The Secretary also must make available the services of the FPLS to any State that wishes to locate a missing parent or child for the purpose of enforcing any Federal or State law involving the unlawful taking or restraint of a child or the establishment or maintenance of a child custody or visitation order.

Historically, the Federal Government held the view that visitation (also referred to as child access) and child support should be legally separate issues, and that only child support should be under the purview of the CSE Program. Both Federal and State policymakers have maintained that denial of visitation rights should be treated separately and should not be considered a reason for stopping support payments. Nonetheless, Census Bureau data indicate that it was more likely for noncustodial parents to make payments of child support if they had either joint custody or visitation rights. Thus, in order to promote visitation and better relations between custodial and noncustodial parents, the 1996 welfare reform law provided $10 million per year for grants to States for access and visitation programs, including mediation, counseling, education, and supervised visitation. In addition, as mentioned above, the 1996 law also expanded the scope of the FPLS to allow certain noncustodial parents to obtain information regarding the location of the custodial parent.

All States and territories applied for and received funding for access and visitation grants in fiscal year 1997. According to a preliminary report on the grant program (American Institutes, 1999), most participating individuals received parenting education, help in developing parenting plans, and mediation services. Based on data from 28 States and 2 territories, nearly 20,000 individuals were served by the grant program in its first year of operation.

THE STATE ROLE

The Social Security Act requires every State operating a TANF Program to conduct a Child Support Enforcement Program. Federal law requires applicants for, and recipients of, TANF to assign their support rights to the State in order to receive benefits. In addition, each applicant or recipient must cooperate with the State to establish the paternity of a child born outside marriage and to obtain child support payments.

TANF recipients or applicants may be excused from the requirement of cooperation if the CSE agency determines that good cause for noncooperation exists, taking into consideration the best interests of the child on whose behalf aid is claimed. If good cause is found not to exist and if the relative with whom a child is living still refuses to cooperate, then the State must reduce the family's TANF benefit by at least 25 percent and may remove the family from the TANF Program. (Federal law also stipulates that no TANF funds may be used for a family that includes a person who has not assigned child support rights to the State.) Before the 1996 welfare reform law, cooperation could have been found to be against the best interests of the child if cooperation could be anticipated to result in physical or emotional harm to the child or caretaker relative; if the child was conceived as a result of incest or rape; or if legal procedures were underway for the child's adoption.

Unlike previous law, the welfare reform law provides States rather than the Federal Government with the authority to define ``good cause.'' The law now requires States to develop both ``good cause'' and ``other exceptions'' to the cooperation requirement. The only restriction is that both the ``good cause'' and ``other exceptions'' must be based on the ``best interests of the child.'' In addition to defining good cause and other exceptions, States must establish the standard for proving a claim. States also will have to decide which State agency will inform TANF caretaker relatives about the cooperation exemptions, and which agency will make the decision about the validity of a given claim. These responsibilities can be delegated to the State TANF agency, the CSE agency, or the Medicaid agency.

Each State is required to designate a single and separate organizational unit of State government to administer its child support program. Earlier child support legislation, enacted in 1967, had required that the program be administered by the welfare agency. The 1975 act deleted this requirement in order to give each State the opportunity to select the most effective administrative mechanism. Most States have placed the child support agency within a social or human services umbrella agency which also administers the TANF Program. However, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, and Massachusetts have placed the agency in the department of revenue and Guam, Hawaii, Texas, and the Virgin Islands have placed the agency in the office of the attorney general. The law allows the programs to be administered either at the State or local level. Ten programs are locally administered. A few programs are State administered in some counties and locally administered in others.

http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/archive/child_support_01.shtml

[backwardsbike]

Amen to that idea.  Courts don't want to deal with conflicted cases and seek to avoid it at all costs.

The last custody evalautor told me- "Don't worry...in 20 years you will have as close a realtionship with your kids as if none of this had ever happened."  Well...what's 20 years anyway?

But that's the court's solution.  And the lip service they pay to "equal access".

[Samson2005]

http://www.fedspending.org/faads/faads.php?&cfda_program_num=93.597&sortby=u&datype=T&reptype=a&database=faads&detail=0

[Samson2005]

$300 for Grants to States for access and visitation programs,

And 114,700 for child support enforcement.

I called the office that is supposed to handle this and after I said that I was calling about the Grants, was put into a voice prompt system and then disconnected.



The page will not allow me to copy and paste...

http://www.fedspending.org/faads/faads.php?fiscal_year=&cfda_program_num=93.597&sortby=u&datype=T&reptype=a&database=faads&detail=4&submit=GO

[Samson2005]

this info has changed since i posted it - 6 hours ago...

update:  the site is not functional to me at this time....

Still not functioning...

I'm giving up on posting the states audit concerning utilization of the funds...