LEE COUNTY, Fla - Parents desperate for help getting child support payments are running into roadblocks. A Lee County program meant to force people to pay up or possibly face jail time ended more than a year ago.

The Pay or Appear program targeted those who were delinquent on child support payments, making them pay up or appear in court and risk jail time. 

In the three months after it was terminated in 2010 we're told money collected dropped about 50 percent. One mom says her family is still suffering since the money has dried up.

"It makes me feel inadequate as a parent because I can't financially take care of my kids." Christine Gelardi Haworth says it's been a financial struggle for her family ever since Lee County's Pay or Appear program ground to a halt.

She tells us her ex-husband's child support payments have slowed to a trickle. "It's been a struggle. I have begged time after time for child support," she said.

The state Supreme Court squashed Pay or Appear in 2010. Attorney Sheldon Finman has followed the program since its inception in the early 2000s. "So many people, so many families, so many children got hurt if not almost financially, I don't mean to embellish, but financially destroyed when this program was shut down," said Finman. 

He says there are ways the program could be brought back to life but it might take some time. "That would be in the domain of the Chief Judge of the 20th judicial circuit which is Judge Rosman," he explained. 

   
"There's no plans to bring it back at this time. The opportunity is out there should the circuit decide they want to pursue something along that line they could certainly do it," said Lee County courts spokesperson Sheila Mann.

"Revamp it if need be, but enforce the child support and don't make it a lengthy process because there's women right now out on the streets that need financial support," said Gelardi Haworth.