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Friend of the Court Staff Attend Training Conference in Northern Michigan
Nine representatives from Wayne County Friend of the Court attended the Michigan Family Support Council annual training conference in northern Michigan last month. There, they learned about more than 40 topics relating to paternity, custody, parenting time, and child support.
The conference opened with a plenary session on investing in your own personal wellness and recovery to avoid burnout. It closed with Erin Frisch, director of the Office of Child Support, part of Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, sharing the current vision of the child support program which is to engage parents to improve children’s lives and with a purpose to achieve families’ well-being and self-sufficiency.
Pictured from left to right in the photo above: Front Row: Juanita Hawkins, Lee Ann Rutila, and JaVonne Ransom Back Row: Stephanie Witucki, Deidra Gilbert, Tanzania Brooks, Helen Hsu, Leslie Murphy, and David McPhail.
Frisch also shared some important statistics, including that Michigan is the third largest child support caseload in the country (California is #1 and Texas is #2) having collected over 1.2 billion dollars of child support in 2023 and having served over 819,000 children with 98% of the money having gone to families and 77% of the money having been collected through income withholding.
In addition to the great speakers and informative educational sessions, the colorful landscape in upper Michigan was beautiful and awesome to see from the mountainside chairlift or the Boyne Mountain SkyBridge and it was fun for colleagues to network around the firepit, play bingo, sing karaoke, play trivia, participate in 50/50 raffles, paint, enjoy the DJ, and pose for the caricaturist or photo booth in the evenings. There were also great items donated for the silent auction to benefit a charitable organization for children. A lot was packed into this 3-day conference!
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