Giving Compass' Take:

· Colorado implemented a Parent Employment Program to increase social and economic involvement, specifically designed to help non-custodial fathers find employment. By helping these parents find jobs, they will have a better ability to pay child support and, overall, contribute to antipoverty efforts.

· What can other states learn from Colorado's Parent Employment Program? What other types of programs can contribute to antipoverty efforts?

· Learn why we need better workforce development to end poverty.

A program in Colorado that focuses on helping non-custodial fathers gain employment and pay child support provides a refreshing example of effective state-led antipoverty efforts.

Initial results from the Colorado Parent Employment Program (CO-PEP) demonstrate the power of work and careful case management, with a focus on outcomes, in increasing the economic and social involvement of formerly addicted or incarcerated men in their families’ lives. Funded through a public/private partnership and administered by the new Colorado Division of Child Support Services, CO-PEP resembles similar projects in Texas that focus on transformational rather than transactional assistance. In other words, assistance isn’t just financial aid but an investment of both social capital and money coupled with some tough love.

CO-PEP is showing that this model still works, with its particular focus on increasing earnings for non-custodial fathers and thereby increasing child support payments to single-parent families. The Aspen Institute reports that two-thirds of program participants had gained full-time employment within 6 months, and within the first year of participation three-fourths of these parents were able to increase their child support payments, leaving single-parent families less dependent on government safety net programs. At a cost of about $2,500 per enrollee and with the possibility that single-parent families will see their need for public assistance decline, CO-PEP is a fiscally responsible investment.

Read the full article about Colorado's antipoverty efforts by Robert Doar at American Enterprise Institute.