- Molly Costanzo and Hanna Han
- July 2025
- CSRA-2024-2026-T10
- Link to CSRA-2024-2026-T10-Report-rev-07182025 (PDF)
In 2019, the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) provided funding via a waiver from the federal Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) to five Wisconsin counties to test ELEVATE, a new service-oriented approach for serving families involved in the child support system. ELEVATE provided case management, employment services, parenting services, and enhanced child support services to noncustodial parents (NCPs) behind on their child support obligations. ELEVATE also included a required evaluation component. This report is a companion report to the ELEVATE Initial Implementation Report (Vogel et al., 2021) and the Final Evaluation Report (Shager et al., 2025). Whereas the Final Evaluation Report summarizes outcomes measured using administrative data, this report describes the primary outcomes from the ELEVATE impact evaluation measured by surveys given at enrollment and 12 months after enrollment.
This report employs a pre-/post-survey design to estimate changes in the levels of primary outcomes for participants 12 months after enrollment compared to the time of, or in the 12 months prior to, enrollment. Primary outcome measures include: change in NCP employment as measured by total number of hours worked and months employed between baseline and follow-up; change in NCP monthly earnings; change in NCP sense of responsibility for children; change in the number of days with in-person contact with nonresident children; and change in level of satisfaction with child support services. This report also examines changes in the level of services received. Change estimates cannot be interpreted as causal given the lack of data on a relevant comparison group.
We find that the period of enrollment in ELEVATE was associated with increases in employment, parenting, and other services receipt. The level of parenting services receipt reported was relatively low, and participants reported receiving onaverage under 5 hours of employment services, which indicates a light-touch intervention for some participants.
We also find that ELEVATE participants reported increases in employment and monthly earnings. Increases in employment are indicated by both weekly hours worked and number of months employed. Though earnings increased, they remain relatively low (approximately $20,000 annually). These increases did not result in increased child support payments, however, indicating additional factors to consider may include job quality and stability and informal employment, among others.
We find that ELEVATE participants do not report increases in parenting measures or measures of satisfaction with the child support system. Measures were relatively high for sense of responsibility for children in the baseline survey, making it difficult to improve upon this measure. ELEVATE was not designed to provide assistance with parenting time orders, so it may not be surprising that time spent with children did not increase. Finally, satisfaction with child support at baseline was alsorelatively high; this may indicate an opportunity for outreach to less-engaged parents for future service provision.
Categories
Child Support, Child Support Policy Research, Employment, Enforcement, Family & Partnering, Parenting, Unemployment/Nonemployment