NTCSA is committed to uniting tribal, state and federal programs as the voice for Indian children. NTCSA’s main objective is to benefit Indian children and develop, promote and enhance family values by bringing together tribal programs such as tribal and CFR courts, Head Start, and Indian child welfare and domestic violence programs. Recognizing that many parents were not paying child support, and seeing the consequences of the non-payment in the spiraling costs of public welfare, the federal government founded the Child Support Enforcement program-also known as the IV-D program-in 1975. The term IV-D refers to the section of the federal Social Security Act (Title IV, Part D) that provides the statutory basis for the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program. Each of the 54 States and territories provides child support enforcement services through the IV-D program. Tribes officially became part of the CSE program with the passage of welfare reform in 1996. The personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) allowed tribes to join in the IV-D program and authorized the operation of tribal CSE programs and tribal cooperative agreements with state IV-D agencies. The First Annual Tribal Child Support Enforcement Conference was held in August 2001, Hosted by the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and the American Indian Institute, the purpose of this conference was to provide discussions and information about the interim regulations of tribal child support enforcement and tribal partnerships with local, state, and federal governments. As a result of this conference, the National Child Support Association was established. The NTCSA’s purpose is to provide a national resource for tribal efforts to serve Native American children through child support programs.
