Child Support Recovery Unit observes August as National Child Support Awareness Month

August is National Child Support Awareness Month. A child needs love, care and financial support from both parents. Iowa’s Child Support Program offers services to ensure parents can meet the financial and health needs of their children. Studies show that when both parents are actively involved in raising kids, the children are better off.

The Child Support Recovery Unit (CSRU) helps parents establish paternity and support orders and enforces orders for support. Child support collections help families with children become self-sufficient.

Anyone can apply for child support services and pay an application fee. In State Fiscal Year 2017, the CSRU provided services to nearly 168,000 cases. Collections totaled almost $322.3 million.

"Our child support program helps secure financial and emotional support for children from both parents," said Department of Human Services (DHS) Director Jerry R. Foxhoven. "Timely support is essential to family sufficiency, and we work hard to collect support in the month it's due and make it easy for employers to deduct child support from wages."

CSRU works with families to:
• Locate parents and their employers or other income sources
• Establish paternity
• Establish support orders
• Suspend and reinstate support orders
• Modify support orders
• Register other states’ orders for enforcement or modification in Iowa
• Send and receive referrals for services to and from other states
• Enforce support orders
• Enforce  health insurance orders through a payor’s employer
• Receive and disburse child support and medical support payments
• Answer customers’ questions and concerns.

To secure an application, visit the Child Support Recovery Unit website at https://secureapp.dhs.state.ia.us/customerweb/.