Hennepin County Loves Kids

The community agency examined within this document for reflection is the Hennepin County Child Support Agency. This agency is part of a larger entity, the Hennepin County Department of Human Services. The child support agency provides a number of desirable services to help children and families of children who are in need of various forms of aid. The main goal of this agency is to ensure that parents who are not guardians of their children have a formalized means of ensuring they receive the benefits which all children need. These include access to sustainable medical care, nutritious food, and expenses for living. The vast majority of services facilitated by the Child Support Agency achieve these goals.

To make these ends attainable, the agency is active both with guardians, non-guardians, and various facets of the court system to ensure the overall welfare of children (Child Welfare, 2017). It also works closely with a number of agencies in the medical and life sciences fields. In this respect it helps people get paternity tests to determine who sired children. It can also orchestrate other forms of genetic testing to clarify to whom exactly children are related. In particular, the work it does within the court system is instrumental to enabling children to get sufficient resources to both live and thrive within today’s social system.

Perhaps the most prominent of these services within the court system is the establishment of court ordered mandates for individuals to pay child support. In the event that such individuals fail to make what is oftentimes a monthly contribution, the Child Support Agency can help implement punitive measures which can serve as motivation to alter that behavior. Furthermore, the agency can also help to collect child support in these and other instances. It can even provide assistance in modifying court orders in order to accommodate changing circumstances that significantly affect a child’s means of attaining the necessities of life.

All of these services are of immense benefit to children in need. Furthermore, the need for these services is almost palpable in this area. There are over 41,000 children in this county who were born to parents who were not married (Hennepin, 2017). What the child support services agency has doe is to formalize a way for these children to still get the basic necessities to give them a chance for survival. It is commendable that the county is able to effect its influence in so many different areas of support services for children. The fact that it is able to implement genetic testing to buttress paternity tests is indicative of the county’s efforts to create a positive difference in the role of children.

Finally, it is necessary to consider the role of the agency within the lives of many unmarried parents. By helping to solidify what is needed for their children to have a decent chance at a successful life, that agency is also helping those parents to become better parents. Perhaps in some small way it may even help them to come together as a family. There are far too many broken homes in America. In some small way, agencies such as the Hennepin County Child Support Agency are able to fix some of those homes.

References

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Retrieved on September 13, 2017: from 

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/outofhome/kinship/

Font, Sarah A. ( 2014). Kinship and Nonrelative Foster Care: The effect of placement type on child well-being. Child Development, 

Hennepin County. Child support. https://www.hennepin.us/ Retrieved from https://www.hennepin.us/residents/human-services/child-support