Is it wraparound yet? Setting quality standards for implementation of the wraparound process

The wraparound process has increasingly been used as a mechanism to plan and coordinate services for children with behavioral health needs and their families. This has led to growing interest in assessing wraparound implementation against standards for quality. However, there has been little consideration of how best to establish such benchmarks or guidelines. Using both a norm-referenced and criterion-referenced approach, this study established preliminary criteria for assessing the adequacy of wraparound implementation using the Wraparound Fidelity Index, version 3, a multi-informant interview that assesses conformance to wraparound principles. The evaluation system was then applied to ten wraparound programs and 11 different study samples assessed via the Wraparound Fidelity Index version 3 in research studies. The system was constructed to discriminate different wraparound conditions assessed in research studies while still being attainable by the ten established wraparound programs. Implications for evaluating wraparound programs and for setting fidelity benchmarks in behavioral health services research are discussed.