Discover how real-time data can help with the locating process and improve the lives of families
Highlights
- Child support enforcement agencies face challenges in locating noncustodial parents due to outdated data and technology.
- AI-powered solutions like CLEAR Investigate accelerate investigations, reduce manual work, and improve data transparency for professionals.
- Trusted, comprehensive data and automated workflows help ensure families receive the support they need efficiently and securely.
The work performed by government agency professionals involved in child support cases can have a significant impact on the lives of millions of U.S. children. The federal child support program has been successful in helping families across the country provide more stability for their children for nearly 50 years. In fiscal year 2022 alone, the program served 12.8 million children – nearly one in five U.S. kids – collecting $30.5 billion in child support payments.
Even with that success rate, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) reported that in 2021, approximately $114 billion in child support goes uncollected in the U.S. each year.
A significant portion of this gap is associated with challenges state child support agencies face in maintaining current information and establishing contact with noncustodial parents (NCPs) .
Jump to ↓
Why locating noncustodial parents remains difficult
Common challenges in child support enforcement
How technology accelerates child support enforcement
Key benefits for child support professionals
Moving forward with confidence
Why locating noncustodial parents remains difficult
For many reasons, NCPs may not be in contact with child support agencies. Some attempt to evade payments, others feel their obligations are unfair, and still others don’t know they owe child support or have simply lost touch with the custodial parent.
Regardless of the circumstances, it’s the child support professional’s job to locate them and notify them of their obligations.
Child support professionals help support families and children to live better lives while managing heavy caseloads and crucial deadlines.
Common challenges in child support enforcement
A lack of access to current data can hinder NCP location efforts, particularly when parents live in different states. Interstate cases are more complex because each state determines which court has jurisdiction over child support issues.
State child support agencies often are hindered by outdated technology platforms that slow down location efforts. Agencies need to search multiple sources for NCP information, and different systems frequently can’t communicate with each other. Different sources may deliver conflicting information, making it extremely difficult to determine which location data is correct.
 |
How technology accelerates child support enforcement
Finding NCPs has long been a complex challenge for state child support agencies struggling with understaffing. In response, more child support professionals are seeking digital technology tools that help them work with greater accuracy and speed.
Modern AI-powered investigative solutions like CLEAR Investigate are transforming how government professionals conduct investigations. CLEAR Investigate is a purpose-built AI that goes to work for you, transforming questions into comprehensive searches across premium content and open-web data to automate routine tasks and find unknown connections – delivering more complete and trusted answers, faster.
CLEAR Investigate supports government professionals by improving research efficiency and outcomes through agentic AI-powered workflows.
Simply ask your question, and the AI autonomously searches, analyzes connections, and surfaces critical information, including details you hadn’t thought to request. This eliminates manually sifting through duplicate records and fragmented results.
|
McKenzie Johnson
First Community Services
Key benefits for child support professionals
CLEAR Investigate transforms government investigations from manual, time-intensive processes into intelligent, automated workflows – going beyond expectations by finding and answering the questions you never thought to ask, while maintaining the security and defensibility your organization demands.
- Accelerated answers: Reduce time spent on manual searches from hours to minutes, with direct answers rather than having to search through reports.
- Transparency and trusted data: Integrated directly within the CLEAR platform, it pulls trusted and transparent data sources – the same trusted CLEAR data served up in an easy-to-digest manner.
- Reduces data overload: Minimizes duplicate results and unnecessary information, helping users focus on relevant data without duplicative or fragmented records.
- Enhanced confidence and defensibility: Every answer includes source documents and a traceable path of actions, providing comprehensive audit trails for court proceedings. Make decisions with greater assurance, backed by fully transparent AI-surfaced insights while operating within the trusted CLEAR environment.
Moving forward with confidence
Thomson Reuters serves as “the most trusted source for government professionals” with an unwavering commitment to supporting community service missions. For child support professionals facing the daily challenges of locating NCPs and ensuring families receive the support they need, having access to trusted, transparent data sources with comprehensive information can make all the difference.
CLEAR Investigate maintains all the compliance and audit capabilities you depend on, while adding AI that anticipates investigative paths and uncovers unknown connections across your cases.
Your security standards remain unchanged, your investigation speed accelerates dramatically, and your ability to drive the government mission is enhanced.
For additional information about child support-related tools and resources, visit the Thomson Reuters child support solutions page.
 |
Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a ‘consumer report’ as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. sec. 1681 et seq. The data provided to you may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing one of our services, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.
