The job hunt was grueling for Ryan Klipa. He tried everywhere, even fast-food restaurants, without any luck ? and the one part-time job he had wasn?t keeping him up with his child support payments.
Klipa finally heard about a new employment program for noncustodial parents who owe child support in Baltimore County.
Now he?s got a job he loves at a car rental agency, and the court is off his back.
“It just opened up a lot of doors for me,” said Klipa, who has five children. “It just gets to you when you have that much responsibility, but you?ve got to do what you?ve got to do.”
Klipa is one of more than 200 noncustodial parents, mostly men, who?ve been in the county?s Family Employment and Support Program since December 2004. It?s a program launched with a 2004 federal grant that brings together judges, child support enforcement officials and employment counselors to get folks into jobs, and paying back their child support bills.
“They can?t give you the same excuses anymore, or play one judge off the other,” said Judge John Hennegan, who first thought of doing an employment program years ago.
Parents were bouncing around the system, their files reflecting the decisions of different judges, he said.
“We were chasing our tails,” Hennegan said.
Now FESP says it has helped collect more than $220,000 in child support. About 48 percent of the program participants were working as of April, according to FESP statistics.
The program essentially tries to coerce parents into accepting their financial responsibilities, officials said. Parents voluntarily sign an agreement saying they can be arrested if they break the rules. Participants have to go to court regularly as a counselor describes their progress to a judge.
Some participants have criminal backgrounds or drug problems, officials said. About a third don?t have a high school diploma or GED. Some need mental health or other counseling. And some people, officials say, just don?t want to pay.
And yet with 36 employers willing to hire program participants, 100 had been hired as of April. They make an average of $9.60 an hour, according to FESP statistics.
When Klipa was in the program, he said, he visited with a counselor at least once a month and followed up with weekly calls.
“I didn?t know if it was the way my resume was built, or the way I was presenting myself,” he said of his difficulty finding a job. But from faxing his resume out to fielding job offers, he said, the FESP program got him employed.
“I love it,” Klipa said of his new job. “Everything ? the customers, and the people here.”
