By ANTHONY QUINN
Guest Columnist

JASPER — August is National Child Support Awareness Month. Organizations involved with the child support system, including the Prosecutor’s Office, partnered this month to support Hoosier families and bring attention to Indiana’s child support programming and resources.

The Indiana Child Support Program is overseen by the Child Support Bureau of the Indiana Department of Child Services. The Bureau contracts with local prosecutor’s offices to administer the program and provide enforcement of child support orders. As your County Prosecutor, I participate in this program, and my office takes the responsibility seriously. We provide a variety of services at no cost to participants at the local office designed to get child support dollars to families, including: locating non-custodial parents, establishing paternity, establishing and modifying child support and medical support orders, and enforcing payment of child support.

Approximately 250,000 families participate in Indiana’s Child Support Program, but experts estimate that’s only half the number of families that could benefit. Locally, we service approximately 1,000 families. Last year, my office collected over $1.7 million in child support for the children of our community. In addition, child support collections for this year are up by 13% to date.

I hope that by promoting the services of the child support program, we can assist more local families with the support they are owed. We make it easy to enroll. You can get started by contacting our office in person at 716 Clay St, Jasper, by phone at 812-482-1818, or you can visit our website at https://www.duboiscountyin.org/departments/child_support_iv-d.php.

You can also find more information about the Child Support Program by

visiting www.childsupport.in.gov or call the Kidsline, Indiana’s child support customer service center, at 800-840-8757.

Anthony Quinn is a Dubois County prosecutor in the 57th judicial circuit. He can be reached at adquinn@duboiscountyin.org or 812-482-4725.