We want to help everyone receiving child support services to feel safe. Our office can take steps to protect your privacy. We will do everything in our power to support your safety planning.

We also know that what we can do might not be enough to make everyone feel safe.

This page is intended to help you decide what makes the most sense in your case.

Empower Yolo serves families affected by domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, and child abuse in Colusa, Sutter, and Yolo Counties.

Contact Empower Yolo 24 hours a day by phone (530-662-1133 / 916-371-1907) or email (info@empoweryolo.org). Or visit one of their offices in person for services such as:

• Crisis intervention
• Emergency shelter
• Counseling
• Legal assistance (including restraining orders)

Our office regularly works with Empower Yolo. They understand child support and can help you decide if it is right for you.

Abuse can be physical, financial, or emotional. Someone can abuse you using violence, threats, intimidation, blackmail, stalking, or other types of control.

A person of any gender, age, sexuality, race, religion, or income can abuse their partner or be abused by them. Someone who is abusing you may or may not abuse other people.

Abuse can also involve more than two parents who are or used to be in a relationship. For example, legal guardians could experience abuse from a parent of the child they care for.

Because abuse can take many forms, these examples give only a small part of the picture. Your situation may be entirely different but still be abuse.

A few examples include a partner who uses threats, intimidation, violence, or other forms of control to:

• Force the other partner to end a pregnancy against their wishes
• Keep the other partner and their child financially dependent on them
• Name the person doing the abuse as the child’s other legal parent
• Stop the child support process before it starts
• Prevent an employer from complying with an income-withholding order
• Convince you to close an existing child support case (often by claiming they will pay without the order)
• Coax the person receiving support into settling child support debt against their wishes

Child support or child custody processes can sometimes also make parents or guardians concerned for their children’s safety.

One extreme example is when a parent violates a custody order or arrangement by detaining or abducting a child. Repeated, serious violations of custody orders can have a similar effect on the child.

The Child Abduction Unit of Yolo County’s District Attorney’s Office explains these kinds of problems and how to report them.

If you live in Colusa or Sutter Counties, reach out to the Colusa County District Attorney or the Sutter County District Attorney to understand how your situation should be addressed.

Steps We Can Take to Help You and Your Family Feel Safer

We can protect your address and other personal information on documents that might go to the other parent.

We can make sure that programs in other states have to follow those same rules about not disclosing personal information.

We can help you get a child support order without having to go to court and see the other parent there.

Contact us to learn more about what we can do to help your safety planning.

If you receive CalWORKs, you might also have to cooperate with the child support program.

But CalWORKs makes an exception when you fear that working with child support could bring harm to you or your children. CalWORKs calls that exception “good cause.”

Good cause can be claimed at any time. You can claim it while applying for CalWORKs or after you start to receive it. You can claim it after a child support order has already been put in place.

To claim good cause in your case, speak to your CalWORKs eligibility worker. Our office cannot process those claims.