Child support officers are Attorney General employees who:
- offer specialized assistance in child support matters, and
- help parents to navigate the procedures involved to get and change child support orders and agreements.
What do they do?
- Provide parents with information about:
- legislation (the law),
- court,
- the child support guidelines,
- the BC Family Maintenance Agency,
- the availability of legal and financial advice, and
- the range of settlement and mediation options available.
- Identify the appropriate services for each case and assess the need for referrals to other support services.
- Explore whether facilitated negotiation is appropriate in a particular case and if so, facilitate negotiations between parents who want to work toward agreement on child support.
- Provide parents with information regarding the current tax treatments of support payments.
- Help parents to compile the required financial disclosure documents by offering advice about where and how to access financial documentation.
- Calculate child support amounts based on a review of existing orders and financial information.
- Help parents complete the required documents (including consent and agreement documents and applications for court), draft orders and legal documents, and witness the signatures of both parties as a commissioner for taking affidavits.
Where can I find one?
Child support officers are currently available at the Family Justice Centres in Vancouver, Kelowna, Surrey, and Nanaimo. To contact a child support officer, call Service BC at:
- 604-660-2421 (Greater Vancouver),
- 250-387-6121 (Victoria), or
- 1-800-663-7867 (no charge, elsewhere in BC).
Ask for a transfer to a child support officer near you. You won't need to pay for the call.