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The Family Employment and Support Program (FESP) is program supervised by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County. FESP is designed to assist non-custodial parents who are behind in their child support payments to obtain full-time employment.

Description:
Program finds jobs for parents owing child support in Baltimore County
Kathleen Cullinan, The Examiner
May 17, 2006
Baltimore County - The job hunt was grueling for Ryan Klipa. He tried everywhere, even fast-food restaurants, without any luck — and the one part-time job he had wasn’t keeping him up with his child support payments.
Klipa finally heard about a new employment program for noncustodial parents who owe child support in Baltimore County.
Now he’s got a job he loves at a car rental agency, and the court is off his back.
“It just opened up a lot of doors for me,” said Klipa, who has five children. “It just gets to you when you have that much responsibility, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”
Klipa is one of more than 200 noncustodial parents, mostly men, who’ve been in the county’s Family Employment and Support Program since December 2004. It’s a program launched with a 2004 federal grant that brings together judges, child support enforcement officials and employment counselors to get folks into jobs, and paying back their child support bills.
“They can’t give you the same excuses anymore, or play one judge off the other,” said Judge John Hennegan, who first thought of doing an employment program years ago.
Parents were bouncing around the system, their files reflecting the decisions of different judges, he said.
“We were chasing our tails,” Hennegan said.
Now FESP says it has helped collect more than $220,000 in child support. About 48 percent of the program participants were working as of April, according to FESP statistics.
The program essentially tries to coerce parents into accepting their financial responsibilities, officials said. Parents voluntarily sign an agreement saying they can be arrested if they break the rules. Participants have to go to court regularly as a counselor describes their progress to a judge.
Some participants have criminal backgrounds or drug problems, officials said. About a third don’t have a high school diploma or GED. Some need mental health or other counseling. And some people, officials say, just don’t want to pay.
And yet with 36 employers willing to hire program participants, 100 had been hired as of April. They make an average of $9.60 an hour, according to FESP statistics.
When Klipa was in the program, he said, he visited with a counselor at least once a month and followed up with weekly calls.
“I didn’t know if it was the way my resume was built, or the way I was presenting myself,” he said of his difficulty finding a job. But from faxing his resume out to fielding job offers, he said, the FESP program got him employed.
“I love it,” Klipa said of his new job. “Everything — the customers, and the people here.”
kcullinan@baltimoreexaminer.com

History:
In the summer of 2003, a special Steering Committee was created to study feasible solutions to address the unemployment of non-custodial parents and the need to increase the collection of child support within the County. The Committee was comprised the following members: the Lead Judge of the Family Division; the Court Administrator; the Criminal Justice Coordinator; the Director and staff of the Baltimore County Office of Child Support; a representative of the Office of Employment and Training and staff from the Family Division of the Circuit Court.

The Committee analyzed 144 chronic non-paying delinquent parents who were identified as individuals who had the ability to work, who had been before the Court on two or more contempts, who had not made payments within six months and whose arrearages exceeded more than two years of payments. It was determined the majority of these non-payers came from the Eastern sector of Baltimore County where unemployment rates were at or near 8%. This was more than twice as high as the state average. Almost the entire study sample was males, who had previous criminal record (60 %) and chronic history of unemployment. The average ages were between 30 and 40.

Recognizing there was a need to address this target population, the Court then received broad base support from various organizations at both the State and County level (see attached letters of support).

The Court then pursued a national discretionary grant program to fund an employment program in December of 2003 which was subsequently awarded $150,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services. It was one of two grants approved nationally in this program area. The award was announced in August of 2004.

An employment coordinator was hired in December, 2004 with a second individual to be hired within the next few months. Child support dockets have been consolidated and cases are now being actively screened for chronic unemployed parents. FESP is now taking clients and an employment network is being developed. An active campaign will be conducted with business organizations throughout the County especially in the eastern areas to develop employment referrals.

Participants will be required to report weekly showing proof of four applications per week. All parents will be assessed on current employment skills, be given resume assistance and wherever necessary, referred to training opportunities. Direct employment referrals will be the essence of the program. Participation in the program will be up to one year during which time child support payments will be monitored.

Annually, 400 cases will be screened for the FESP program. and it is anticipated that programmatically 200 cases will be monitored during any given 12-month cycle. The target for the program is to collect $400,000 per year in child support.

FESP clients will benefit from supportive services provide by its partners, which include the Office of Employment and Training, the Bureau of Substance Abuse, the Division of Rehabilitation Services, and the Bureau of Corrections.

Contact person: Cheryl Harris, Court Employment Coordinator, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (410) 887-2747

Address:

401 Bosley Avenue, Room G-11, County Courts Building Towson, MD 21204 (See a map)

Directions:

Take Baltimore Beltwat to York Road/Towson Exit 26. Turn left onto West Road and right at the light onto York Road. Stay in the right lane to turn onto the Towson Bypass (Bosley Avenue). Go four blocks.. . . (more)   Nearest Bus Stop: 11, 3, 55, 8