Wraparound News Archives - Page 2 of 5 - National Wraparound Initiative (NWI)
New NWI Guidance Document: “NWI Guidance for Family First Prevention Service Act Evaluation Plans for High Fidelity Wraparound”
March 26, 2021 | NWI
States that are interested in including Wraparound in their FFPSA five-year plan must also submit a well-designed and rigorous evaluation strategy, as well as a plan for continuous quality improvement (CQI) and fidelity monitoring. This new document from the NWI provides guidance on how to meet these criteria.
Nominate a Wraparound Star for the Spotlight!
March 26, 2021 | NWI
The NWI spotlight recognizes people who have made contributions to Wraparound at any level, from participation on a single Wraparound team to leading a state or national initiative. If you know of someone whose Wraparound story or journey merits recognition, we encourage you to nominate them.
New Webinar Recording and Slides: “WrapStat – A New System for Collecting and Using Wraparound Fidelity, Satisfaction, and Outcomes Data”
March 26, 2021 | NWI
Research continues to accrue showing that Wraparound care coordination can promote positive youth and family outcomes. However, outcomes are more positive when the team process, supervision, and organizational and system decisions are informed by relevant data. WrapStat is a web-based data collection, management, and feedback system designed to evaluate the fidelity of Wraparound based on measures of the Wraparound Fidelity Assessment System (WFAS), such as the Wraparound Fidelity Index and Team Observation Measure. WrapStat provides an array of functions that can promote rigorous fidelity and outcomes evaluation of Wraparound, including a youth roster that collects and reports on length of stay, discharge disposition, progress toward needs, and core outcomes for all enrolled youth; random sampling and data collection tracking for fidelity assessment using the WFI-EZ and TOM; email functions that send links to fidelity and satisfaction surveys to parents, youth, and care coordinators; and continually updated “dashboards” and custom reports at care coordinator, program, and system levels. This webinar provides an overview of how WrapStat works and how it can be used to aid Wraparound initiatives of any size or complexity to stay on track.
If you would like to license use of the WFAS tools – which includes use of WrapStat to keep your Wraparound evaluation on track – please contact the University of Washington Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team via our website, or by emailing us at wrapeval@uw.edu.
New Webinar Recording and Slides: “How Do Program and System Factors Influence Wraparound Implementation, Fidelity, and Sustainment?”
March 26, 2021 | NWI
Wraparound care coordination has been shown to be capable of promoting more positive outcomes for youth and families with complex needs. However, practitioners, technical assistance providers, program and system leaders, and youth and family advocates have all observed how the complexity of children’s service systems can make it challenging to provide high quality and effective Wraparound. This webinar presented on January 21, 2021 expanded on new Wraparound research recently presented at the annual Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health Conference. The research study, by members of the University of Washington Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team and National Wraparound Implementation Center, presents new research that employs sophisticated measures of implementation that aims to answer several critical questions about what drives Wraparound implementation success. First, what is the typical amount of time it takes for a service system to achieve initial implementation and sustainment of Wraparound, compared to other evidence based practices (EBPs)? Second, what is the effect of system factors – specifically, the types of Wraparound provider organizations that are used – on Wraparound implementation success and time to success? Third, how do these system and program factors affect the workforce being trained to implement Wraparound? Results are translated into concrete recommendations for states, jurisdictions, and provider organizations seeking to implement high-quality Wraparound.
Seeking partners for rigorous research on Wraparound
August 3, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
The evidence for the effectiveness of Wraparound has continued to grow over the past 20 years, but findings from randomized controlled trials have been mixed. Several contributing factors, such as inconsistent fidelity monitoring and variations in implementation, have impacted the results of these trials (Suter & Bruns, 2009). For these reasons among others, Wraparound is typically listed as a “promising” (rather than well-established) practice in registries such as the California Evidence-based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare. Federal funding opportunities, such as the Family First Prevention Services Act, have increased the demand for rigorously tested, well-supported evidence-based preventative practice models. Given the mixed findings for Wraparound, and the fact that most rigorous Wraparound outcomes studies were conducted on initiatives that do not conform to high fidelity standards, more such studies of well-supported Wraparound programs are needed.
NWI and UW Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team are seeking members of the NWI community who lead or are affiliated with Wraparound initiatives, and who may be interested in participating in a randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trial of Wraparound. Thus, we are reaching out to the NWI community to identify partners who may be interested in serving as research sites when an opportunity to conduct a trial becomes available.
At this time, we are particularly, although not exclusively, interested in evaluating Wraparound initiatives that serve youth with:
- “Serious emotional and behavioral disorders” (SEBD) or mental health needs;
- Child welfare involvement;
- Juvenile justice involvement; and/or
- Involvement in programs serving transition-aged youth.
We are seeking interested partners whose Wraparound initiatives meet the following criteria and are willing to discuss conducting a rigorous evaluation of their Wraparound program:
- Currently implementing Wraparound with fidelity, as demonstrated with at least one tool from the Wraparound Fidelity Assessment System (WFAS). Ongoing fidelity monitoring will be a key component of the evaluation.
- Willingness to participate in a rigorous evaluation (randomized or quasi-randomized design) that enables comparison of outcomes for youth enrolled in Wraparound versus youth with similar characteristics and level of need enrolled in some alternative set of services (e.g., uncoordinated care “as usual,” child welfare or justice services “as usual,” institutional care).
- Willingness to partner actively with the research team, facilitate submission of study materials for approval, etc.
If a partner is interested in pursuing a randomized controlled trial, an appropriate funding mechanism will be identified and applied for in collaboration with the NWI and UW Wraparound Evaluation and Research Teams. The goal of the funding would be to support the evaluation procedures of a current Wraparound initiative rather than funding the implementation of a Wraparound initiative. Thus, we are looking for programs or services that you are currently operating or that you are planning to roll out or expand in the near future.
Please submit a your name and contact information to Eric Bruns ebruns@uw.edu and Tony Bonadio fbonadio@ssw.umaryland.edu if you are interested in further discussing the possibility of collaborating on such a project.
New webinar recording and slides available: Applying implementation science to wraparound: what should we measure?
July 21, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
A webinar presented July 8th by staff from the NWI and NWIC is now available to view online.
Wraparound is a widely utilized care coordination model for youth with serious behavioral health needs that aims to preserve resources, improve outcomes, and reduce rates of out-of-home placement. In recent years, structured training and coaching models and fidelity measures have proliferated. However, this can cause measurement dilemmas for Wraparound initiatives. Moreover, each individual Wraparound program using its own approaches makes it more challenging to analyze data across efforts and glean “lessons learned.” This session, includes initial examples of what has been learned from Wraparound implementation research to date.
Access the recording and slides here»
New webinar recording available: Collaboration between youth partners and family partners in wraparound
May 13, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
This webinar, presented by Caitlin Baird, Maria Hermsen-Kritz, and Janet Walker on April 30th, 2020, focused on strategies to optimize the connection between youth and family peer support partners when they are working together on Wraparound teams. It covered key strategies on how to collaborate as well as how to address common challenges.
Access the recording here»
New Practice Brief and Study guide available: How Youth Partners Can Collaborate With Family Partners in Wraparound
May 13, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
A new practice brief from NWI and Pathways Research and Training Center provides guidance for youth and family partners working together on Wraparound teams to collaborate and address common challenges while supporting the youth and family. It is accompanied by a study guide which gives some possible answers to the questions raised in the scenarios in the practice brief and can be used as tool in supervision, coaching or training.
Find the brief and study guide on our featured publications page here»
New Webinar Recording and Slides Available: Peer Parent Support: Evolution, Promises and Challenges
May 12, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
This webinar provides an overview of high quality and purposeful peer support for parents, as well as a brief history of how Peer Parent Support has been integrated into Wraparound projects. Presenters provided an evolution of peer parent support and the various ways it has been implemented within the Wraparound structure over the past 25 years, reviewing challenges and lessons learned.
Recording and slides available here»
Upcoming Webinar: A “Virtual Tampa Conference Wraparound Track”
May 6, 2020 | Maria Hermsen-Kritz
The National Wraparound Initiative and Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team invite you to join us for a webinar at which we will present Wraparound outcomes research studies planned for the 2020 Tampa Children’s Mental Health Research and Policy Conference that was sadly canceled due to COVID-19. In this 90-minute webinar, they will present findings from four studies: (1) a new meta-analysis of outcomes from 19 controlled Wraparound studies found in a systematic review, (2) a study of Medicaid costs savings from Connecticut’s Wraparound care coordination initiative, (3) a quasi-experimental study of outcomes as evaluated by the CANS instrument for Wraparound versus alternative services in a large provider organization, and (4) relationships between provider organization conditions and wraparound fidelity and outcomes.
The webinar takes place Thursday, May 21st at 2:00 pm EST. Register here»