Family Initiatives

Strong families are the bedrock of Texas. When Texas families are strong, Texas is strong. The OAG's Family Initiatives support our commitment to value Texas families and children throughout all its programs, policies and activities.

The OAG's Child Support Division (CSD) continues to set records for child support collections — with more than $2.3 billion collected in fiscal year 2007. Texas children and families need and deserve this financial support. Building on this strong foundation, the Family Initiatives help us to better serve Texas children, families and communities.

Family Initiatives strengthen families, encourage healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood, and promote increased parental cooperation and involvement with children. These goals complement and reinforce the Child Support Division's mission to support families and children through the distribution of child support payments.

Family Initiatives work to improve outcomes for children and their parents. These efforts include:

• improving child support efforts;
• promoting paternity education and voluntary paternity establishment;
• encouraging healthy marriage, family stability and responsible fatherhood;
• improving parenting skills and cooperation; and
• supporting noncustodial parent employment.

The OAG also administers grants awarded to subrecipients, and monitors grants for federal/state regulations compliance. The Family Initiatives staff works collaboratively to build strategic partnerships (both financial and non-financial) to develop and implement innovative initiatives designed to improve outcomes for children and families in DFC programs.

Family Initiatives include:

Access and Visitation Program

The Access and Visitation (A&V) program promotes noncustodial parents' access to and visitation with their children, when appropriate, through a variety of shared parenting projects. Awarding grant funding to local organizations is one way the Attorney General's Office can help children whose parents are engaged in custody or visitation disputes, since federal funding to run the child support program cannot be used to handle these issues. The services provided under this grant include co-parenting education, alternative dispute resolution, development of parenting plans, supervised visitation, and visitation enforcement. The A & V program also provides funding for public education materials promoting cooperative parenting after divorce or separation. Public education materials are distributed through local courts, county domestic relations offices, OAG child support offices, and community/faith-based social service organizations. The OAG maintains an online directory of programs and service providers across Texas designed to facilitate shared parenting after separation or divorce. Parents, counselors, and other professionals can search the online directory by zip code, county, or service provided. The A & V directory is listed on the right of this page.

Access and Visitation Hotline and Web site

The Texas Access and Visitation Hotline is the only service of its kind in the nation that provides noncustodial and custodial parents with free phone access to attorneys who provide legal information and assistance related to child custody and visitation issues, as well as paternity and child support information. Hotline attorneys do not represent parents. Rather, they provide explanations of legal orders, provide tools and guidance for resolution of child access issues, and answer parents' questions regarding possession and access orders, custody, paternity and child support. The statewide, toll free number, 1-866-292-4636, is answered in English and Spanish, Monday - Friday from 1 to 7 p.m. The hotline has a corresponding Web site, www.txaccess.org, where parents can download sample materials and tools for assistance with child access issues.

Building Strong and Healthy Families in Texas (BSHF-T)

BSHF-T is a federal demonstration project operating in Houston and San Angelo that provides intensive family and couple support to unmarried parents who are expecting or recently had a child. The project works to support healthy couple relationships, encourage paternity establishment, and increase parenting skills and knowledge. The project evaluation, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, measures the impact of services on couple marriage rates, family stability, and child well-being. This project is made possible through collaboration with the federal Administration for Children and Families, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), the Texas Workforce Commission, and private foundations. Local partners in the project are Healthy Family Initiatives of Houston and Healthy Families San Angelo.

New Parent Outreach Project (NPOP)

NPOP is a federal demonstration project designed to inform new, unmarried parents of their legal responsibilities to support their child, resources available to fulfill those responsibilities, and the value of marriage and stable families for child well-being. This federally funded evaluation project is conducted in five birthing hospitals in Austin. The project is also conducted statewide at 20 birthing hospitals or prenatal clinics through the distribution of resource information to unmarried new parents at or around the time of their child's birth. NPOP includes the development of an innovative handbook for unmarried parents, Parenting Two-gether, which provides couples with guidance on everything from infant care and father involvement to couples' relationship skills.

No Kidding: Straight Talk From Teen Parents

The No Kidding project trains and equips young parents to deliver an educational curriculum on the realities of being a young parent to students in middle and high school. No Kidding educators use their experiences as teen/young parents to deliver a memorable message about paternity establishment, father involvement, the challenges of parenting, and the benefits of postponing parenthood until economically stable and in a marital relationship. No Kidding is currently implemented in Austin and El Paso in collaboration with local school districts, community-based organizations, local foundations, and local workforce development boards.

Noncustodial Parent Choices Project

The NCP Choices project aims to increase child support collections by increasing employment and training services for NCPs and tightening sanctions for non-cooperation with these services. A judicial order requires un- or under-employed NCPs who are currently not paying child support to participate in employment services with strict sanctions (possible jail time) for non-compliance. Local workforce development boards provide intensive employment services designed to meet the needs of NCPs and facilitate their entry into stable employment. The NCP Choices project evaluation tracks the impact of these services on payment of child support, employment measures, and custodial parent TANF use. An interim evaluation found highly significant increases in child support payment frequency, amount and consistency, as well as increases in employment and a reduction in TANF use by the custodial parent. The project is a collaboration between the OAG, the Texas Workforce Commission, and child support judges. NCP Choices currently operates in 12 sites across the state, comprised of ten local workforce boards and 25 child support offices.

Parenting and Paternity Awareness (p.a.p.a.)

p.a.p.a. is an innovative educational curriculum designed for secondary school students and young adults that deals with "rights, responsibilities, and realities of parenting." Key themes in the curriculum focus on the importance of father involvement, the value of paternity establishment, the legal realities of child support, the financial and emotional challenges of single parenting, the benefits of both parents being involved in a child's life, healthy relationship skills, and relationship violence prevention.

The Office of the Attorney General is offering the 2008 edition of the 14-session curriculum and training at no charge to teachers, school counselors, school nurses, teen parent program staff, and parent educators in community-based programs. The p.a.p.a. curriculum is a method by which school districts can comply with state law passed in the 80th Legislature requiring high school health to include a parenting and paternity awareness curriculum.

The OAG is coordinating with TEA and Regional Education Service Centers to train teachers, nurses and counselors. Community-based organizations and larger school districts who wish to schedule training directly with the OAG can complete this form and e-mail it to OAG employee Kate Wiseheart.

View the calendar of upcoming p.a.p.a. trainings.

Services for Incarcerated Noncustodial Parents

The Family Initiatives staff works closely with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to deliver education and resources to incarcerated noncustodial parents about paternity and child support issues that may impact their lives while incarcerated and upon release. The OAG distributes thousands of the Incarcerated Parents and Child Support brochures each year and provides videos to TDCJ for use with offenders on the basics of paternity and child support. The OAG also answers hundreds of letters received each year from offenders regarding case status, paternity establishment, communication with children, and steps offenders should take upon release to deal with child support obligations.

The Family Initiatives staff is conducting a single field office pilot to develop and test procedures and policy recommendations for incarcerated NCP modifications. The NCP modifications pilot will expand to additional offices and include training of TDCJ Access to Courts Supervisors (law librarians).

Strong Start - Stable Families (SSSF)

SSSF is a federal demonstration project designed to test a new approach to prenatal services that specifically include the expectant father and engage both parents in a range of medical and social services promoting positive birth outcomes, healthy couple relationships, paternity establishment, father involvement, and economic stability. Services provided as part of this intervention include Centering Pregnancy classes for couples; prenatal education on paternity establishment, child support, and parenting; team parenting and relationship skills; and connection to employment services and relationship violence prevention services. SSSF is being implemented in partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine Teen Health Clinics located in Harris County.

For more information:

For more information about Family Initiatives, please call 512/460-6400.