Arkansas Child Support Cooperation for Grandparents Receiving TEA Cash Help

You applied for a child-only TEA grant to help cover expenses for the grandchild you are raising. A few days later, you get a letter from the Office of Child Support Enforcement asking you to cooperate in pursuing child support from your grandchild's parent. You did not sign up for a child support case. But in Arkansas, the two programs are connected, and understanding how they interact keeps your TEA benefits intact.

Why DHS Requires Child Support Cooperation

When you receive TEA cash assistance — even a child-only grant where your income is completely excluded — federal and state law require the caregiver to cooperate with the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE, the Title IV-D agency). Cooperation means helping OCSE establish paternity if needed and pursue a child support order against the non-custodial parent.

The logic from the state's perspective: child support collected on behalf of the child while the family receives active TEA cash assistance is assigned to the state. Collections up to the monthly grant amount reimburse the state's TEA expenditure. Any excess beyond the grant amount is passed through to the family.

For most grandparents, this means OCSE may open or maintain a case against your grandchild's absent parent, even when you have no interest in confronting that person.

What Cooperation Actually Looks Like

OCSE cooperation is not a vague promise. It means specific actions:

• Providing information about the non-custodial parent's identity, location, and employment if you have it
• Appearing at interviews or proceedings if OCSE requests it
• Not interfering with OCSE's efforts to establish paternity or collect support

Refusing to cooperate without an approved exemption can result in your child-only TEA grant being sanctioned — the cash assistance for the child, not your personal benefits, since your income is not part of the case.

One important distinction: child-only Medicaid (ARKids First) does not require OCSE cooperation. If you are only applying for the child's health coverage, the child support question does not come up.

The Good Cause Exemption

Arkansas recognizes that cooperation with child support enforcement is not always safe. If pursuing the absent parent would put the child or you at risk, you can claim a Good Cause Exemption during your initial intake interview at the DHS Division of County Operations.

Approved grounds include:

• The child was conceived through rape or incest
• Legal adoption proceedings are currently pending
• An active child welfare resolution is underway regarding whether the child should be relinquished for adoption
• Documented domestic violence, physical abuse, or credible threats of violence from the non-custodial parent

You can request the exemption on form DCO-0004 or by submitting a Good Cause claim to DHS. Arkansas allows a claim at any time during the case; when OCSE is notified of one, it pauses child-support activity while DHS decides. Supporting evidence strengthens the claim: police reports, protective orders, court records, or professional assessments from medical or mental health providers.

If DHS approves the Good Cause claim, you can keep the child-only TEA grant without cooperating with OCSE on the child-support activities covered by the exemption.

What Happens to Child Support Money

If OCSE does collect child support while the child receives TEA cash, here is how the money flows:

1. Collections up to the monthly TEA grant amount reimburse the state for its TEA expenditure
2. Any excess is applied first to child-support arrears assigned to the state; if none are owed, the remaining amount is disbursed to the family
3. When the TEA case closes, the assignment ends for future support, but unpaid support assigned to the state while TEA was active may still be collected

For a grandparent receiving a $162/month child-only grant for one child, the state keeps up to $162 of any child support collected that month. If OCSE collects $250 and no state-assigned arrears are owed, you receive $88; otherwise, that excess is applied to the arrears first.

If You Do Not Want a Child Support Case

Some grandparents know that pursuing the absent parent will create conflict, endanger the child, or simply yield nothing because the parent has no income. Your options:

• Claim Good Cause if one of the qualifying grounds applies. This is the clean path.
• Forgo TEA cash assistance and consider programs with different rules — child-only ARKids First does not require OCSE cooperation; Arkansas SNAP requires custodial parties receiving SNAP to cooperate with OCSE on paternity and child support for a child under 18 unless DHS approves good cause; childcare vouchers through the Office of Early Childhood have separate eligibility rules.
• Accept the referral but provide limited information. OCSE can only work with what is available. If the parent cannot be located or has no income, the case may go dormant.

The Arkansas Financial Help for Kinship Caregivers guide walks through each program's requirements side by side, including which ones trigger the child support cooperation rule and which do not, so you can make an informed decision about your application strategy before you sit down at the DHS office.

Key Takeaways

Child support cooperation is mandatory for TEA cash assistance, and Arkansas SNAP requires custodial parties receiving SNAP to cooperate with OCSE on paternity and child support for a child under 18 unless DHS approves good cause. Child-only ARKids First does not require OCSE cooperation. The Good Cause Exemption exists specifically for situations where pursuit of the absent parent would cause harm. Request it early if possible; Arkansas allows a Good Cause claim at any time during the case. And if the cooperation rule is the only thing stopping you from applying for TEA, read the exemption criteria carefully before deciding the grant is not worth it. For many kinship families, the monthly cash help outweighs the paperwork.

See more Arkansas guides →