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Wraparound Practitioner Certification Program

Purpose

Innovations Institute is pleased to provide Maryland with the Wraparound Practitioner Certificate Program for care coordinators, caregiver peer support partners, youth peer support partners and their supervisors and administrators.  The purpose of the certificate program is to provide practitioners with the necessary support in attaining high-fidelity and quality wraparound practice.  The certificate program is designed to support practitioners through coaching, training and technical assistance through the phases of the wraparound process. 


Why Wraparound?

To ensure family’s VOICEs are heard and they are full decision makers in charge of their own lives.

To ensure caregivers and youth have ACCESS to the people a processes in which decisions are made as well as access to needed resources and services.

To ensure the family has OWNERSHIP of the planning process I partnership with the team and is in agreement and committed to carry out the plan.

What is Wraparound?

Wraparound is an ecologically based process and approach to care planning that builds on the collective action of a committed group of family, friends, community, professional, and cross-system supports mobilizing resources and talents from a variety of sources resulting in the creation of a plan of care that is the best fit between the family vision and story, team mission, strengths, needs, and strategies.

Key Elements of the Wraparound Process

Grounded in a Strengths Perspective

Strengths are defined as interests, talents, and unique contributions that make things better for the family.   Within an entire process that is grounded in a strengths perspective, the family story is framed in a balanced way that incorporates family strengths rather than a focus solely on problems and challenges.  A strengths perspective should be overt and easily recognized, promoting strengths that focus on the family, team and community, while empowering and challenging the team to use strengths in a meaningful way

Driven by Underlying Needs

Needs define the underlying reasons why behaviors happen in a situation.  In a needs-driven process, the set of underlying conditions that cause a behavior and/or situation to exist are both identified and explored in order to understand why a behavior and/or situation happened.  These needs would be identified across family members in a range of life areas beyond the system defined areas. These underlying conditions would be articulated and overt agreement with the family and all team members about which to select for action or attention would occur.  The process involves flexibility of services and supports that will be tailored to meet the needs of the family

Invested in Accountability and Results

Wraparound is a process that requires active investment by a team, comprised of individuals willing to be accountable for the results.  Measurable target outcomes are derived from multiple team member perspectives. The team’s overall success is demonstrated by how much closer the family is to their vision and how well the family needs have been addressed.

Determined by Families

A family-determined process includes both youth and caregivers and the family has authority to determine decisions and resources. Families are supported to live a life in a community rather than in a program.   The critical process elements of this area include access voice, and ownership. Family access is defined as inclusion of people and processes in which decisions are made.  Inclusion in decision making implies that families should have influence, choice and authority over services and supports identified in the planning process. This means that they should be able to gain more of what is working and less of what they perceive as not working.   Family voice is defined as feeling heard and listened to, and team recognition that the families are important stakeholder in the planning process. Therefore, families are critical partners in setting the team agenda and making decisions. Families have ownership of the planning process in partnership with the team when they can make a commitment to any plans concerning them.  In Wraparound, the important role of families is confirmed throughout the duration of care.

Program Requirements

Principles

  1. Family voice and choice. Family and youth/child perspectives are intentionally elicited and prioritized during all phases of the wraparound process. Planning is grounded in family members’ perspectives, and the team strives to provide options and choices such that the plan reflects family values and preferences.
  2. Team based. The wraparound team consists of individuals agreed upon by the family and committed to them through informal, formal, and community support and service relationships.
  3. Natural supports. The team actively seeks out and encourages the full participation of team members drawn from family members’ networks of interpersonal and community relationships. The wraparound plan reflects activities and interventions that draw on sources of natural support.
  4. Collaboration. Team members work cooperatively and share responsibility for developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating a single wraparound plan. The plan reflects a blending of team members’ perspectives, mandates, and resources. The plan guides and coordinates each team member’s work towards meeting the team’s goals.
  5. Community-based. The wraparound team implements service and support strategies that take place in the most inclusive, most responsive, most accessible, and least restrictive settings possible; and that safely promote child and family integration into home and community life.
  6. Culturally competent. The wraparound process demonstrates respect for and builds on the values, preferences, beliefs, culture, and identity of the child/youth and family, and their community.
  7. Individualized. To achieve the goals laid out in the wraparound plan, the team develops and implements a customized set of strategies, supports, and services.
  8. Strengths based. The wraparound process and the wraparound plan identify, build on, and enhance the capabilities, knowledge, skills, and assets of the child and family, their community, and other team members.
  9. Persistence. Despite challenges, the team persists in working toward the goals included in the wraparound plan until the team reaches agreement that a formal wraparound process is no longer required.
  10. Outcome based. The team ties the goals and strategies of the wraparound plan to observable or measurable indicators of success, monitors progress in terms of these indicators, and revises the plan accordingly.