Utah Child Support Cooperation for Kinship Caregivers — ORS Requirements and Good Cause

The Cooperation Requirement

When you accept the Specified Relative Grant through Utah DWS, you automatically agree to cooperate with the Office of Recovery Services (ORS) in establishing paternity and enforcing child support against the absent parents. This is not optional — it is a mandatory condition of receiving the cash grant.

ORS's job is to recover the cost of the public benefit by collecting child support from the biological parents. When you accept the FEP cash grant, the child's right to current child support payments is legally assigned to the State of Utah. ORS pursues the parents and collects the money to offset what the state pays out.

What Cooperation Actually Means

In practice, DWS may ask you to provide information about the absent parents — their names, last known addresses, employers, or Social Security numbers. ORS uses this information to locate parents, establish paternity if needed, and serve child support orders.

You may need to participate in interviews, provide documents, or appear at hearings if ORS pursues a formal order. The level of involvement depends on how much information you have and whether the parents are locatable.

If you do not know where the parents are, tell DWS what information you do have and explain what you do not know. The cooperation requirement is to provide the information available to you.

When Cooperation Feels Dangerous

This is where kinship cases get emotionally and physically complicated. Many grandparents are raising a grandchild precisely because the parent is dealing with addiction, domestic violence, or mental health crises. The fear is real: if ORS contacts the parent with a child support demand, the parent might retaliate by taking the child back, disappearing, or escalating a volatile situation.

Utah law accounts for this through the Good Cause exemption.

How Good Cause Works

You can claim Good Cause for non-cooperation with ORS by submitting documentation to DWS. Valid grounds include:

• Physical or emotional harm risk to the child or caregiver if the parent is contacted
• Domestic violence involving the parent
• Pending adoption proceedings that would be disrupted
• Pregnancies resulting from criminal sexual assault

Supporting documents include protective orders, police reports, medical records, court filings, or written statements from social workers, counselors, or shelters.

If DWS grants Good Cause, ORS suspends all collection efforts against the parents. The child's Specified Relative Grant continues without interruption. You are not penalized, and the grant is not reduced.

Filing Good Cause Early

Do not wait for ORS to contact you or the parent before raising the issue. If you know that cooperating with child support enforcement poses a risk, tell DWS at the time you submit your application. Flag the concern during your intake interview or include a written statement with your uploaded documents through myCase.

Claiming Good Cause after ORS has already contacted the parent is still possible, but it is harder to undo a confrontation that has already happened.

What Happens to Child Support Already Being Paid

If the child was receiving child support before you applied for the Specified Relative Grant, those payments are assigned to the state to offset the grant cost. ORS collects the support and applies it against the FEP expenditure.

Child support paid directly to the child also counts as unearned income in the grant calculation, reducing the monthly payment dollar for dollar.

The Utah Kinship Financial Help guide covers the full interaction between child support, the cash grant, and other benefits — including how to protect the child's grant while navigating the ORS process.

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