A key finding was that the majority of the women wanted to encourage and maintain ongoing contact between the father and his child, both emotionally and financially. The results show, however, that welfare-reliant mothers and fathers live in circumstances that offer complex challenges that do not allow them the opportunity to understand policies relevant to their circumstances, such as the Family Violence Option (FVO), which allows States to waive child support cooperation requirements for domestic-violence victims. Child support programs also offer a separate “good cause” mechanism for excusing custodial parents from cooperation, which a custodial parent on welfare can claim if she can prove emotional or physical harm to herself or her child. Custodial parents who are victims of IPV and receiving welfare benefits for their children often do not have the knowledge necessary to affirm their rights under policies that could benefit them. Future research should continue to investigate how child-support agencies and agencies that administer Federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) implement the FVO and the methods used by these agencies in identifying survivors of IPV. Key interview questions focused on how the parents became involved with the child support enforcement system, knowledge of penalties for noncooperation, and the noncustodial father’s involvement with the children. Data were collected through semistructured interviews. Ancillary data were obtained from observation of a courtroom paternity establishment hearing, a review of court records of the interviewed parents, and a review of local daily newspaper and weekly periodicals. 2 tables, 11 notes, and 25 references