National Wraparound Initiative's Wraparound Blog

New Results from Document Assessment and Review Tool (DART) Further Demonstrate Importance of Wraparound Fidelity

December 15, 2024 | Eric Bruns

For over a decade, the National Wraparound Implementation Center (NWIC) and UW Wraparound Evaluation and Research Team (WERT) have been promoting “high-fidelity” Wraparound practice in their training, technical assistance, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement efforts.

Why is this our “true north”? Because we believe, now more than ever, that it is critically important to honor youth and families’ strengths and preferences, engage their natural and community supports, tailor the supports they receive to their individualized needs, and other elements that define Wraparound practice.

We have also found via many evaluations and research studies that Wraparound fidelity as measured by our Wraparound Fidelity Assessment System is associated with more positive family – and system – outcomes.

Now NWIC and UW WERT have uncovered additional evidence for the importance of fidelity from the newest measure of the WFAS: The Document Assessment and Review Tool (DART)

We analyzed documentation from 1,150 youth/families in seven states using the DART. Results showed that the majority of fidelity domains assessed by the DART were significantly associated with youth and family outcomes, such as residential stability, improved mental health and interpersonal functioning, regular school attendance, and avoiding arrests and behavioral health crises.

We also found additional evidence for the importance of supporting Wraparound fidelity – and the validity of the DART. Our analyses showed that states that have been implementing Wraparound longer and with better-developed training, coaching, and system supports scored significantly higher on the DART fidelity and outcome scales.

As we have done for the Wraparound Fidelity Index (WFI-EZ), results from these analyses will also help DART users interpret their results across all DART domains, including Timely Engagement, Meeting Attendance, Driven by Strengths and Families, Natural and Community Supports, Needs-based, Outcomes-Based Process, Key Elements, Safety Planning, and Outcomes.

To see more on these and other results from these new analyses, we invite you to attend our January 13th webinar: “What Are the National Means?… and What Do They Really Mean? Data Insights from WrapStat.”

In this webinar, we will present data from thousands of fidelity assessments collected via the DART and WFI-EZ. We hope that results from these analyses will help us understand what areas of fidelity are most challenging to achieve and point to benchmarks for Wraparound states and initiatives that use the DART to evaluate success and stay on track.

As always, our overarching goal will be to continue to feed data back to our national Wraparound community of practice, and help licensed users of WrapStat and the WFAS measures make the most of these tools.

See you in January!

Eric Bruns and the NWIC and UW WERT teams