Board proclaims August 2025 Child Support Awareness Month; Tulare County child support office highlights caseload and backpack drive

The Tulare County Board of Supervisors presented a proclamation recognizing August 2025 as Child Support Awareness Month and heard a briefing from county child support officials on services, caseload and local outreach.

Roger Dixon, director of the Tulare County Department of Child Support Services, described the office’s mission to partner with parents to secure accurate child support and medical-support orders. Assistant Director Jennifer Guido told the board the department’s local caseload is 24,364 cases covering 28,072 children; year-to-date distributed collections through June were reported as $31,900,000, up approximately $1.2 million from the prior June. The department is targeting roughly $41 million in distributed collections for the current year.

Jennifer Davis, training and outreach specialist, described the department’s second annual back-to-school backpack drive in partnership with Valley Strong Credit Union. Last year the department and partners collected and distributed 177 backpacks to Jefferson Elementary in Dinuba. Staff said backpacks were presented to Alta Vista Elementary in Porterville and that Wilson Elementary School in Dinuba will receive backpacks on Aug. 19.

The proclamation presented to the department recognizes “August 2025 as Child Support Awareness Month in Tulare County.” The proclamation text included a figure for children that staff noted was out of date during the presentation; staff provided the corrected caseload statistics during their briefing. County supervisors praised the department’s customer-service response to constituent inquiries and thanked Valley Strong for partnering on the backpack distribution.

The board and department members said the department’s services are provided at little or no cost regardless of income, and staff emphasized the program’s stated role in reducing child poverty through support collections.