Wraparound (childcare) - History

History

Wraparound was initially developed in the 1980s as a means for maintaining youth with the most serious emotional and behavioral problems in their home and community. In recent years, however, it has been applied within many child-serving settings as a way to improve outcomes for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance, autism spectrum disorders and behavioral disorders. For example, it has been used as a means to facilitate permanency outcomes for youth involved in the child welfare system, to reduce recidivism for youths involved in the juvenile justice system, and to improve academic success for youths in the special educational system.

During the wraparound process, a team of individuals who are relevant to the well-being of the child or youth (e.g., family members and other natural supports, service providers, and agency representatives) collaboratively develop an individualized plan of care, implement this plan, and evaluate success over time. The wraparound plan typically includes formal services and interventions, together with community services and interpersonal support and assistance provided by friends, kin, and other people drawn from the family’s social networks. The team convenes frequently to measure the plan’s components against relevant indicators of success. Plan components and strategies are revised when outcomes are not being achieved.

The process of engaging the family, convening the team, developing the plan, implementing the plan, and transitioning the youth out of formal wraparound is typically facilitated by a trained care manager or “wraparound facilitator,” sometimes with the assistance of a family support worker. The wraparound process, and the plan itself, is designed to be culturally competent, strengths based, and organized around family members’ own perceptions of needs, goals, and likelihood of success of specific strategies.

Wraparound has been implemented nationally for over 20 years and presented as a promising practice in many publications. However, specification and consistent implementation of the model has occurred only in the past few years. In some states, Wraparound is a term applied to in-home behavioral support services. The wraparound process, however, as recently specified, is conceived of a four phase process: Engagement and team preparation, Initial plan development, plan implementation, and transition. The full description of the activities that typically take place in each of these phases can be found in “Phases and Activities of the Wraparound Process,” a document available on the website of the National Wraparound Initiative.