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Child Support

Every child needs financial and emotional support and every child has the right to support from both parents. Minnesota’s child support program benefits children by enforcing parental responsibility for their support.

The Child Support Enforcement Division supervises the child support program. County child support offices administer it by working with parents to establish and enforce support orders. The child support program helps:

• children receive the financial basic support, medical support, and child care support they deserve

• families work toward becoming and remaining self-sufficient

• parents establish a financial partnership

Private information

Child support information is classified as private data under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. Anyone can ask for public data.

Private data on individuals or nonpublic data not on individuals can be given to:

• the person who is the subject of the data

• others who the law says can see the data

• anyone the person who is the subject of the data says, in writing, can see the data.

Releasing Private Information

If you want the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the county child support office to give private information concerning your child support case to a third party, such as your current spouse, attorney, relative or friend, you can complete the Authorization for Release of Child Support Information to a Third Party (PDF). Fax or mail the authorization to the person you want to release the information.

Topics of Interest

The Child Support Performance Report for 2012 (PDF) provides data for state fiscal year 2012 (July 1, 2011 – June 30, 2012) on state and county collections and case load information for Minnesota’s Child Support Enforcement program.

Child Support ezDocs is now available to Minnesota child support participants. Child Support ezDocs is an interactive web tool that participants can use to request a review of their child support order, respond to an active review of their child support order or complete the pro se forms for child support modifications.

The Power of Two video is now online. The video explains voluntary paternity establishment through the Recognition of Parentage (ROP) process. A Recognition of Parentage form allows unmarried parents to establish a legal father (paternity) for their child.

Email updates - The Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED) now offers a new Email Update service that sends automatic email notices regarding useful child support program information to subscribers. Anyone with an email address can subscribe. You can subscribe via the link on this page. When you subscribe you will receive a confirmation email and you must respond to it in order to activate your subscription.

County performance in context is a new interactive Web feature providing citizens the tools to compare Minnesota counties on 11 measures related to the well-being of children and families, get profiles of these measures, and view various demographic and economic indicators. It provides measures on the child support paternity establishment rate and collections rate.

Child support analysis of service delivery model – To address interrelated policy, infrastructure and service delivery issues, the Minnesota Department of Human Services contracted with Deloitte Consulting to assess the child support program in Minnesota. Deloitte proposed models that would allow the state to manage the most cost-effective program, meet all federal requirements and maintain the state’s high level of performance for children. A letter from the program’s director, Wayland Campbell, provides a helpful introduction and contains working links to the report (PDF).

Independent consultant examines child support processes - An analysis of current Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED) policies and procedures identifies 21 projects of varying complexity needed to renew a top-performing program that is increasingly stressed by customer service demands from constituents, rising case loads and greater competition for federal incentive funding. The report, a 255-page document (PDF), culminates about a year of work by Deloitte Consulting to identify opportunities to streamline CSED operations, reduce complexity and improve program efficiency through automation.

Job Loss and Child Support - During these hard economic times, parents, who have been laid off, may not be able to meet their child support obligations. Help is available.

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