Child Maintenance Options is an information and support service that gives free and impartial help to separating or separated parents in Great Britain so they can make informed choices about child maintenance. [1]
The service discusses the different options available to separated and separating families regarding child maintenance.
Child Maintenance Options gives separated parents the information they need to put in place the maintenance agreement most suited to their needs. This could be a family-based arrangement (also called private agreement), an arrangement made under the UK government’s statutory child maintenance [2] scheme (currently managed by the Child Maintenance Service) or one enforced by a court Consent Order (or Minute of Agreement in Scotland).
It also has a variety of tools on its website to help separated parents make family-based arrangements. These include a discussion guide, a family-based arrangement pack, video case studies from parents who have used the service and a range of leaflets.
The service can also give customers an estimated calculation of the amount of maintenance that would be payable if they used the Child Maintenance Service. The estimate is based on the Child Maintenance Service’s own formula, which takes account of factors like shared care, income and other children. Parents can use their estimate as the basis for working out an appropriate maintenance amount between themselves. The service also has an online child maintenance calculator that anyone can use.
The service also helps with a range of wider separation issues like housing, childcare, legal issues and debt and has links to other organisations and support services that it recommends to customers.
As well as separated and separating parents, the service is available to grandparents and other relatives and friends of separated families, people with a professional interest in finding out more about child maintenance, and others.
In July 2006, Sir David Henshaw reported on his findings following the fundamental review of the UK’s child support systems that he had carried out over the previous six months.
One of the Henshaw Report’s recommendations was that any government strategy on child support should include as one of its key principles the provision of information and support to help parents meet their child maintenance responsibilities. [3]
The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission was established in 2008 and is currently responsible for the child maintenance system in Great Britain. It has a primary objective to maximise the number of effective child maintenance arrangements in place and a statutory duty to provide an information and guidance service. Child Maintenance Options was launched in July 2008 to meet this statutory duty.
Around 200 experts work at Child Maintenance Options answering people’s queries on the phone, by e-mail, via the live chat service on their website or providing face-to-face support when needed. [4]
In 2010, Child Maintenance Options ran a national promotional campaign, involving TV, radio, online and print advertising. This generated 66,500 calls to the service showing a growing demand for this type of support. [5]
As of September 2010, Child Maintenance Options had handled more than 500,000 successful contacts (defined as a meaningful conversation about child maintenance) and had more than a million hits on its website. [6]
As at March 2011 around 91,000 children were benefiting from a family-based arrangement set up by separated parents after contact with the service. [7]
The success of the Options service was further demonstrated in 2010 by its success in winning the Contact Centre Association Global Service Excellence award for Best Outsourcing Partnership, [8] as well as being shortlisted to the final three for the Best Public Service award at the 2010 Civil Service Awards. [9]
Child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid directly or indirectly by an obligor to an obligee for the care and support of children of a relationship that has been terminated, or in some cases never existed. Often the obligor is a non-custodial parent. The obligee is typically a custodial parent, a caregiver, or a guardian.
A parenting plan is a child custody plan that is negotiated by parents, and which may be included in a marital separation agreement or final decree of divorce. Especially when a separation is acrimonious to begin with, specific agreements about who will discharge these responsibilities and when and how they are to be discharged can reduce the need for litigation. Avoiding litigation spares parties not only the financial and emotional costs of litigation but the uncertainty of how favorable or unfavorable a court's after-the-fact decision will be. Moreover, the agreement itself can authorize the employment of dispute-resolution methods, such as arbitration and mediation, that may be less costly than litigation.
The Child Support Agency (CSA) was a delivery arm of the Department for Work and Pensions in Great Britain and the former Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland. Launched on 5 April 1993, the CSA was to implement the Child Support Act 1991 and arrange payments for parents living with their children. The CSA was abolished and replaced in 2012 by its successor, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).
The fathers' rights movement in the United Kingdom consists of a large number of diverse pressure groups, ranging from charities and self-help groups to civil disobedience activists in the United Kingdom, who started to obtain wide publicity in 2003. Studies show the majority of the UK population support the need for change and protection of fathers rights to meet the responsibility through 50:50 contact. The movement's origin can be traced to 1974 when Families Need Fathers (FNF) was founded. At the local level, many activists spend much time providing support for newly separated fathers, most of whom are highly distraught. Although some have been accused of being sexist by some commentators, these groups also campaign for better treatment for excluded mothers, women in second marriages, other step-parents and grandparents – all of whom suffer discrimination in respect of contact with their (grand) child(ren).
Deadbeat parent is a pejorative term referring to parents who do not fulfill their parental responsibilities, especially when they evade court-ordered child support obligations or custody arrangements. They are also referred to as absentee fathers and mothers. The gender-specific deadbeat father and deadbeat mother are commonly used to refer to people who have parented a child and intentionally fail to pay child support ordered by a family law court or statutory agency such as the Child Maintenance Service.
Parental responsibility refers to the responsibility which underpin the relationship between the children and the children's parents and those adults who are granted parental responsibility by either signing a 'parental responsibility agreement' with the mother or getting a 'parental responsibility order' from a court. The terminology for this area of law now includes matters dealt with as contact and residence in some states. Parental responsibilities are connected to Parents' rights and privileges.
Child custody is a legal term regarding guardianship which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of legal custody, which is the right to make decisions about the child, and physical custody, which is the right and duty to house, provide and care for the child. Married parents normally have joint legal and physical custody of their children. Decisions about child custody typically arise in proceedings involving divorce, annulment, separation, adoption or parental death. In most jurisdictions child custody is determined in accordance with the best interests of the child standard.
The Child Support Agency (CSA) was an Australian Government organisation which was established in 1988 to administer the assessment and collection of child support under the Australian Government's Child Support Scheme.
In family law, contact, visitation and access are synonym terms that denotes the time that a child spends with the noncustodial parent, according to an agreed or court specified parenting schedule. The visitation term is not used in a shared parenting arrangement where both parents have joint physical custody.
Pregnancy options counseling is a form of counseling that provides information and support regarding pregnancy. Women seeking pregnancy options counseling are typically doing so in the case of an unplanned or unintended pregnancy. Limited access to birth control and family planning resources, as well as misuse of birth control are some of the major contributing factors to unintended pregnancies around the world. In 2012, the global rate of unintended pregnancies was estimated to be 40 percent, or eighty-five million pregnancies.
In the United States, child support is the ongoing obligation for a periodic payment made directly or indirectly by an "obligor" to an "obligee" for the financial care and support of children of a relationship or a marriage. The laws governing this kind of obligation vary dramatically state-by-state and tribe-by-tribe among Native Americans. Each individual state and federally recognized tribe is responsible for developing its own guidelines for determining child support.
An unaccompanied minor is a child without the presence of a legal guardian.
The fathers' rights movement has simultaneously evolved in many countries, advocating for shared parenting after divorce or separation, and the right of children and fathers to have close and meaningful relationships. This article provides details about the fathers' rights movement in specific countries.
International child abduction in Japan refers to the illegal international abduction or removal of children from their country of habitual residence by an acquaintance or family member to Japan or their retention in Japan in contravention to the law of another country. Most cases involve a Japanese parent taking their children to Japan in defiance of visitation or joint custody orders issued by Western courts. The issue is a growing problem as the number of international marriages increases. Parental abduction often has a particularly devastating effect on parents who may never see their children again.
Family law in Canada concerns the body of Canadian law dealing with domestic partnerships, marriage, and divorce.
This article includes information about the child support policies of several countries.
The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission was a non-departmental public body established to take responsibility for the child maintenance system in Great Britain.
The BC Family Maintenance Enforcement Program (FMEP) is a Provincial Government service established by the British Columbia Ministry of Justice in 1988. The program monitors and enforces maintenance orders and agreements for child support and spousal support. Annually, the program assists approximately 45,000 families, 58,000 children and collects and disburses over $200 million (CAD) in maintenance payments each year.
The Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act is a US bill that would address federal adoption incentives and would amend the Social Security Act (SSA) to require the state plan for foster care and adoption assistance to demonstrate that the state agency has developed policies and procedures with respect to the children it is working, and which are (possibly) a victim of sex trafficking or a severe form of trafficking in persons. The bill furthermore requires states to implement the 2008 UIFSA version, which is required so the 2007 Hague Maintenance Convention can be ratified by the US.
The Child Maintenance Group(CMG) is a department and function of the Department for Work and Pensions in Great Britain and the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland. Launched in 2012 to replace its predecessor, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the CMG is responsible for implementing the Child Support Act 1991 and subsequent legislation in the form of its two services, the Child Support Agency and from 2012 its long-term successor, the Child Maintenance Service.