What is "Wraparound"?

A wraparound service is developed and/or approved by a child and family team, is community-based and unconditional, is culturally competent and includes the delivery of coordinated, highly individualized services in three or more life domain areas of a child and family.

A child and family team, at a minimum, includes:

1. The parent and/or surrogate parent
2. A service coordinator, who is responsible for ensuring that the services are coordinated and implemented;
3. If the child is in Oneida County custody, the appropriate representative, DSS worker;
4. A lead teacher and/or school counselor;
5. If a child is receiving mental health services, the appropriate therapist or counselor;
6. An advocate of the child and/or parent
7. Any other person influential in the child's or parent's life may be instrumental in developing effective services, such as natural resources: a neighbor, a relative, a friend, or pastor.

In addition, the child should be included on the team unless otherwise deemed inappropriate.

Community-based means in the local community or rural area where the child and his/her family live. Restrictive or institutional care should be accessed for brief stabilization only.

Culturally Competent means that the child and family team are culturally sensitive and the services are tailored to the particular culture and values of the child and family.

Unconditional means that the team agrees never to deny services because of extreme severity of disability, to change services as the needs of the child and family change, and never to reject the child and family from services.

Individualized services are based on specific needs of the child and/or family, and not on a particular categorical intervention model. "Needs" are defined in positive terms, such as a need of a child for remedial action, or a parent to get employment or the need of a child to stop hurting other children and learn appropriate interactive skills. These individualized services are both traditional (therapy) and non-traditional (mentoring, community supervision, in-home treatment, etc.)

Life domain needs are areas of basic human needs that almost everyone experiences. These are: home/residence, family, social/community, school/work, medical, mood/emotional, mood/selfharm, behavioral, thinking, legal, safety and other areas such as cultural/ethnic needs.