Child Maintenance Options

Questions and Answers

What is the Child Maintenance Options service?

  • Child Maintenance Options provides impartial information and support to help both parents make informed choices about child maintenance. Being impartial means there is no bias towards a particular parent.
  • The service exists to help:
    • Separating/separated parents who need to set up a child maintenance arrangement
    • Support parents in making their own family-based arrangements
    • Provide information on other types of child maintenance arrangements
  • This service exists to help guardians, relatives friends or professionals interested in finding out more about child maintenance.

What does the Child Maintenance Options service aim to do?

  • The service is there to help both parents identify the most appropriate maintenance arrangement for their circumstances. The service will:
    • Talk them through the different options for putting in place a child maintenance arrangement
    • Support them in putting their own family-based arrangement in place
    • Explain how to take the next steps to put an arrangement in place, once the parent has made a choice
    • Offers practical information in areas linked to child maintenance, such as housing, employment and money. It can also put people in touch with specialist organisations that can provide help and advice.

Who can call the Child Maintenance Options service?

  • Anybody including parents, friends and family.
  • CSA clients are also welcome to call Child Maintenance Options. However, if they want to talk about something specific to their case, the Child Maintenance Options specialist will signpost them to the CSA.

What support does Child Maintenance Options provide?

  • The service is completely confidential and impartial.
  • Child Maintenance Options provides the chance for parents to call and talk to someone in a confidential environment about their situation.
  • Parents can access a wide range of tools and leaflets through the Child Maintenance Options phone number or website, such as a family-based arrangement pack which can act as a practical step in making a collaborative child maintenance arrangement and an online calculator to help parents in making financial calculations.
  • Child Maintenance Options also provides signposting to other organisations and services.

What if Child Maintenance Options can't help a parent with their enquiry?

  • Child Maintenance Options signposts people to a wide range of organisations that can help on issues such as family separation, debt, housing and employment.

How many people has the Options service actually helped in setting up their own arrangements?

  • Based on internally conducted client surveys, the Commission estimates that 105,000 children are benefiting from family-based arrangements put in place since the launch of Child Maintenance Options in July 2008, following contact between one or both of their parents and the service.
  • Overall the take-up of Child Maintenance Options has been positive. Since its launch in 2008 over 600,000 calls have been handled by the service.