Quarterly Newsletter | Summer 2024

SAVES Center Welcomes New Partners

CPR is excited to welcome new partners, the Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) and the Centre for Public Impact (CPI), to the SAVES Center! The SAVES Center is a national resource center, funded by the federal Office of Child Support Services (OCSS), that aims to increase safe access to child support, parenting time, and establishment of parentage services for survivors of domestic violence. Overseen by the Colorado Division of Child Support Services (DCSS), the three partner organizations (CPR, BWJP, and CPI) collaborate to provide research, training, technical assistance, policy direction, and collaboration guidance. The SAVES Center also works closely with the 13 SAVES demonstration sites which are 12 state and 1 tribal child support programs.

Colorado Rural Collaborative

Rural Collaborative's Annual Report on Youth Homelessness in Rural Colorado

Youth experiencing homelessness in rural areas across Colorado face greater challenges than those encountered by their peers in urban settings. CPR recently completed the annual report for Colorado's Rural Collaborative which supports homeless youth across rural Colorado. This report details the services and supports that 179 rural youth received during 2023 from Rural Collaborative partners and the outcomes they experienced. Read the annual report here.

Life. As Told By Youth. Project

CPR finalized the Overview Brief for the Life. As Told By Youth. project. The Life. As Told By Youth. project is the Colorado DCSS implementation of the Charting a Course for Economic Mobility and Responsible Parenting Grant, a three-year national demonstration funded by the OCSS to educate and motivate teens and young adults to follow the success sequence, a term used to describe a consecutive set of milestones (i.e., completing high school, obtaining a full-time job, getting married, having children) associated with a lower likelihood of living in poverty. This brief is the first of three that will describe Life. As Told By Youth. Future CPR briefs will present the evaluation plan, the implementation process, and an assessment of its outcomes.

Website

The Life. As Told By Youth project involved the development of youth-created media to message about their perceptions of economic mobility and the success sequence. Following a collaboration between a youth advisory board and a marketing consultant, the project launched a website to distribute the media messages, as well as resources on economic mobility and responsible parenting, including child supportive services.

Fatherhood Research & Practice Network (FRPN)

CPR directs the FRPN

The goals of the FRPN are to:

1. Promote rigorous evaluation of fatherhood programs that serve low-income fathers.
2. Expand the number of researchers and practitioners collaborating to evaluate fatherhood programs.
3. Disseminate evaluation findings to support effective fatherhood practice and the conduct of new evaluation research.
4. Promote father inclusion in state-level programs and policies dealing with children and families. 

Latest FRPN Brief: Updates on State Criminal Justice Policies and Programs that Affect Access to Employment

A new brief, written by CPR Director, Dr. Jessica Pearson, and Research Analyst, Dr. Rachel Wildfeuer, identifies recent state policies that affect access to employment for formerly incarcerated individuals. It highlights state laws that increase access to employment, including clean slate laws and fair chance licensing laws. It also presents “tough on crime” policies that may restrict access to employment. This brief provides an update to Dr. Pearson and Dr. Wildfeuer’s Policies and Programs Affecting Fathers: A State-by-State Report. 

Conferences Presentations

Upcoming Conferences:

2024 National Conference on Domestic Violence

September 16, 2024, 10:30 to 11:45 AM (CST)

CPR Research Analyst Dr. Destinee Starcher, will co-lead the workshop "Safety Risks Associated with Various Child Support Case Actions for Domestic Violence Survivors". The workshop will discuss how the child support process affects domestic violence survivors, and how the risks survivors face throughout the child support process can be mitigated.

Western Intergovernmental Child Support Engagement Council (WICSEC) Annual Training - SAVES Center Panel

October 1st, 2024, 1:30 to 3:00 PM (PDT)

CPR Senior Research Associate Lanae Davis will be moderating the panel "Protecting the Safety and Well-Being of Families Receiving Child Support" during the SAVES Center Panel. Panelists will discuss the initiatives their programs have implemented to enhance safety, how they support survivors of domestic violence, and how they work with those who cause harm.

Recent Conferences:

2024 National Fatherhood Summit

August 13th, 2024

CPR's Betty Tegegne and Rachel Wildfeuer recently delivered a presentation on state policies and programs that can help to facilitate positive father engagement. Their workshop highlighted states that have father-supportive policies and programs in areas of public life dealing with child support, criminal justice, education, employment, family law, and responsible fatherhood. Attendees were able to learn where their state falls on the spectrum and break into groups to discuss strategies for change.

2024 Eastern Regional Interstate Child Support Conference

April 8th, 2024

Dr. Jane Venohr, Economist and Research Associate at CPR, spoke about child support guidelines in a workshop titled "Bridging Our Way Towards Sustainable Child Support Orders". The discussion touched on the different factors considered by and calculations methods used in state child support guidelines/formulas.

2024 National Child Support Engagement Association (NCSEA) International Roundtable

March 12th, 2024

Dr. Venohr spoke at the closing plenary, during which she discussed inclusion of parents in the review of child support guidelines and formulas.

2024 National Child Support Engagement Association (NCSEA) Policy Forum

February 4th, 2024

Dr. Venohr was a panelist at the closing plenary, called "Calling ALL Families: Requirements and Best Practices for Equitable Policy Making". She and the rest of the panel discussed the inclusion of parents in the development of child support policies.

New Hire: Arely Aguirre

Arely joined CPR in 2024 as a Research Assistant and is supporting projects aimed at improving child support outcomes, enhancing economic mobility and cultural connectedness, and increasing self-sufficiency and employment retention services for non-custodial parents. Arely received her undergraduate degree in political science with an emphasis in public policy from Purdue University. Before joining CPR, she worked as a paralegal for a Denver-based Immigration law firm.

LINC 5th Anniversary Series – Partnership

CPR Senior Research Associate, Lanae Davis provided insight on the benefits of partnering with the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab and the role of the Linked Information Network of Colorado (LINC) in supporting cross-system data linkages to support research on the prevalence of youth homelessness. Her comments were featured on the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab's Blog, visit their page for more information!

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