An Evaluation of the Oregon Parenting Time Opportunities for Children Grant: 1.Mediation 2. Interactive Parenting Plans

In 2012, the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement made “Parenting Time Opportunities for Children” (PTOC) grant awards to five states. The grants were intended to:

…improve the financial and emotional support of children in the child support system by increasing safe opportunities for them to build relationships with both parents. The parenting time grants focus on providing opportunities to create formal parenting time arrangements at the point of child support order establishment.*

Oregon received one of the PTOC grants and proposed to use two distinct approaches to extending the opportunity to create a parenting time plan to parents with child support cases.

1. One approach was the creation of a network of mediators who would provide never-married, low-income parents the chance to mediate a parenting-time agreement. The project was housed with Oregon’s child support system.
2. The second approach was the development of an interactive web-based program that parents could use to generate a parenting plan.

The Center for Policy Research (CRP) of Denver, Colorado, was retained to conduct a distinct evaluation of each approach that the Oregon Department of Justice pursued. This report presents the results of both studies.

* Discretionary Grants for Parenting Time Opportunities for Children in the Child Support Program. Child Support Fact Sheet Series Number 14. Office of Child Support Enforcement Administration for Children & Families U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.