The Department of Child Support Services Resource

“To enhance the lives and well-being of child and promote family self-sufficiency by establishing and enforcing support orders.”

The Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) provides a variety of family law-related services to the public. Among the services offered are: establishing paternity; establishing, modifying and enforcing child support orders; and collecting and distributing child and spousal support payments.

DCSS becomes involved in child support cases where a custodial parent is receiving public assistance in order to support the child. Once the State of California begins to make payments to support a child, a referral is made to DCSS. DCSS is then charged with possibly opening a case for child support from the non-custodial parent.

In addition to filing cases to claim reimbursements from a non-custodial parent, DCSS provides services to parents who wish to file a case for child support. If you cannot locate or do not know the identity of the child’s father, DCSS can help. DCSS can help you locate the father or establish paternity for purposes of support. The Paternity Opportunity Program helps to reunite unmarried fathers with their children. If the parents of the child are unmarried at the time of the child’s birth, the father’s name will not be added to the birth certificate. Therefore, the father has no legal tie to his child unless he either signs a paternity declaration or legally establishes paternity through a court proceeding and amends the birth certificate.