Two parents and child

Family & Safety

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Child support and child care

Child support is money one parent pays to the other parent to help provide for the reasonable and necessary physical, mental, and emotional health of the child. Learn more about:

  • Getting child support,
  • Changing or ending child support,
  • Enforcing child support, and
  • Getting educational (college) expenses.
Child support common questions
Common questions that are asked about general child support issues.
FAQ
Getting child support
(5 resources)
Getting child support basics
Explains the general process to get child support payments in Illinois.
Guide
Getting child support
Common questions asked about getting child support payments in Illinois.
FAQ
Starting a case to get child support
Steps to get child support from the forms you need to how the court hearing works.
How-To
Order for Support
Use this form to have the judge in your child support case record their decision.
Form link
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Changing or ending child support
(7 resources)
Changing or ending child support payment basics
This guide discusses the basics of changing or ending child support payments.
Guide
Changing or ending child support payments
Common questions that people may have on changing or ending their child support payments.
FAQ
Starting a case to change child support payments
This how-to explains the steps and provides forms to ask a judge to change child support payments.
How-To
Request to change child support
This Easy Form helps you make forms to ask the court to increase or decrease your current child support order. This is called child support modification.
Easy Form
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Enforcing a child support order
(5 resources)
Enforcing child support basics
Explains the basics of enforcing child support orders.
Guide
Enforcing child support
Common questions asked about how to enforce a child support order in Illinois.
FAQ
Enforcing a child support order
Steps to enforce a court order for child support from mediation to going to court.
How-To
Petition for rule to show cause - Family law cases
This Easy Form makes a Petition for Rule to Show Cause to help you enforce an earlier court order. Use it for Illinois family law orders, involving child support, divorce judgments, allocation of parental responsibilities, parenting plans, or joint parenting agreements (custody or visitation).
Easy Form
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Day care or educational expenses for my kids
(4 resources)
Educational expenses for college students basics
Explains the basics of obtaining educational expenses as child support for college students.
Guide
Educational expenses for college students
Commons questions about getting child support for college student expenses.
FAQ
Getting college educational expenses as child support (Cook county)
This how-to provides steps for asking for college expenses as child support in Cook county.
How-To
Petition for educational expenses - Cook County
Use this form to ask the judge to make the other parent pay educational expenses for your child who is 18 or older.
Form download
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Another child care or support issue
(1 resources)
Financial affidavit
This Easy Form helps you provide financial information and documents to the other party in family law cases. It makes the statewide Financial Affidavit (Family and Divorce Cases) forms.
Easy Form
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