Summit County Child Support Enforcement Agency

Information on Services

Your county child support enforcement agency (CSEA) can help find the physical whereabouts of the non-residential parent, the employer, or other sources of income and assets so that the CSEA may take the next step to secure or enforce a child support order. Paternity establishment refers to the legal determination of being named as a child's father. The paternity establishment process is available at any time before the child attains 23 years of age. Paternity can be determined even if the other parent lives in another state or even in a foreign country. It can be established in the following ways:

 The voluntary acknowledgment process refers to completion of a form known as an "Acknowledgment of Paternity Affidavit". You can complete this at the hospital when your child is born, before both parents leave the hospital. It can also be completed at your county's CSEA or your local Vital Statistics Registrar.

 If a case is contested or if there is some doubt as to the parentage of the child, either parent may request that the CSEA conduct genetic testing to determine the father of the child. The CSEA will then order all parties to submit to genetic testing and will issue an administrative paternity order based on the outcome of the genetic test. For a paternity order to be established, the test must show at least a 99% probability of fatherhood.

 If paternity is established through genetic testing the CSEA will schedule a support hearing to establish a support order for the child(ren).

 If either party fails to submit to the test or fails to submit the child for genetic testing, the CSEA may request the court to find the party in contempt and determine the issue of paternity.

 As a result of federal welfare reform legislation and state law, in January 1998, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Office of Child Support, created the Central Paternity Registry (CPR). The purpose of the registry is to collect and process all paternity documents initiated by the CSEA's, hospitals, vital statistics registrars and courts. The registry extracts specific data elements from each document. Within a few days, the information is made available to the CSEA's to allow them to move quickly to establish support. Once the registry edits the paternity documents, the originals are forwarded to the Ohio Department of Health for permanent storage.