Wraparound

Description

Wraparound is a philosophy of care with a defined planning process used to build constructive relationships and support networks among students and youth with emotional or behavioral disabilities (EBD) and their families. Major features of wraparound are that it is community based, culturally relevant, individualized, strength based, and family centered. Wraparound plans are comprehensive and address multiple life domains across home, school, and community, including living environment; basic needs; safety; and social, emotional, educational, spiritual, and cultural needs. Another defining feature of wraparound is that it is unconditional; if interventions are not achieving the outcomes desired by the team, the team regroups to rethink the configuration of supports, services, and interventions to ensure success in natural home, school, and community settings. In other words, students do not fail, but plans can fail. Rather than forcing a student to fit into existing program structures, wraparound is based on the belief that services and supports should be flexibly arranged to meet the unique needs of the students and their families.

As teams of community members and extended family form partnerships with mental health providers, educators, and other professionals, wraparound teams often have to create services that may not have existed as part of a community-based continuum of care, such as respite or in-home interventions. Services are created on a “one student at a time” basis to support success as defined by the student, family, teacher, and others who spend the most time with or have the most responsibility for the student. As teams problem solve how to effectively meet students' needs, they combine supports for natural activities (e.g., child care, mentoring, making friends) with traditional interventions (e.g., behavioral interventions, specialized reading instruction, medication). Wraparound teams also arrange services for the adults who care for the student. For example, teams have assisted family members in accessing basic living supports, such as transportation, stable housing, recreation opportunities, and social supports. A parent may be better able to focus on a home-based behavior change plan if stress about being evicted from an apartment is alleviated. Teams can also provide supports for teachers who may be challenged with meeting the unique needs of a student. A behavior support plan to change problem behavior at school may be more likely to succeed if the teacher has a designated person (e.g., school psychologist, counselor) who models the instruction of the replacement behavior or how to naturally deliver the reinforcement in the context of a classroom.

A skilled facilitator works closely with the youth and family to assemble a team based on their unique strengths and the student's identified needs. Extended family and other natural support persons ensure that the team represents the culture and values of the family. Team members who have skills in areas of need (e.g., behavior specialist, vocational counselor, mental health clinician) or resources and credibility to support the family (e.g., minister from their church, extended family, friends) collectively prioritize [Page 1602]needs, design interventions, and plan access to needed supports and services. Similar to person-centered planning in its focus on quality of life determined by the student and family, the wraparound process creates a context in which the perspectives of all team members are blended to reach identified goals. The focus is to ensure that those who spend the most time with the student have full ownership of and commitment to the outcomes and are invested in the interventions used to achieve the outcomes. Under these conditions, wraparound teams can establish a context where effective interventions are likely to be developed and implemented with success.

...