Source: Eber (2003). “The Art and Science of Wraparound: Completing the Continuum of school-wide behavioral support.” Bloomington, Indiana: Forum on Education at Indiana University. (video and training manual) www.forumoneducation.org

Preparing for the Meeting

1. Initial Conversations. The wraparound facilitator engages core team members in initial conversations before tem meetings are even scheduled. Core team members include family, student, teacher, and others who have frequent contact with or control over major decisions affecting the student. For example, if a child welfare worker has the role of determining a youth’s living environment, they would be considered a core team member along with the parent and/or primary caregiver and the classroom teacher. The initial conversation is perhaps the most critical step of the wraparound process because: a) a supportive, consensus-building context is developed for the family who needs to feel comfortable and confident as they work in partnership with the school and other service providers and b), critical information is gathered to guide decision-making by the team. It is through the initial conversations that the development of a truly effective team and plan is begun. Facilitators who spend enough time achieving the goals and outcomes of the initial conversation are typically rewarded with smooth, efficient and productive team meetings.

Who are We and Why are We Here?

2. Clarify agenda, determine or review logistics/rules for meeting. During initial conversations, the facilitator needs to inquire about timeframes, locations, meeting protocol, and team norms that are acceptable to the family and other core team members (i.e. teacher). Previous experiences with meetings are often part of the frustrations that are shared during the initial conversations as team members are asked about what has worked or not worked in the past. For example, information shared by a family/youth may indicate that previous meetings have felt non-productive, intimidating and frustrating for them. Classroom teachers may also express annoyance at having spent time in meetings that didn’t really help them deal with the child’s behavior or other needs. The facilitator listens carefully to past meeting experiences for indication of needs and to ensure that past negative occurrences are not repeated. If team members have had previous meeting experiences that were positive, find out what made it positive for them as it may be possible to build on that experience. In the “Art and Science of Wraparound” video, a parent describes past meeting experiences that she did not consider helpful or supportive and she also describes how wraparound meetings were positive for her in that she felt people were listening to her and what she wanted for her son.

It is important to make sure all participants are in agreement with the timeframes for the meeting. Teams should create rules or meeting norms that they think are needed to ensure the comfort of key players and prevent past negative meeting experiences from occurring. Possible meeting rules teams can choose from are included in Handout 5.2.

3. Introduce Team Members by Role and Goal. People do not become team members based on job title but by their role with the youth/ family. Therefore everyone introduces themselves by their role rather than job title. This is important in establishing the needs of the youth/family as the primary focus of the team and helps clarify why each person is on the team. Once again, the initial conversation is the place to help people identify their role and to determine if their may be some overlap of roles or different perspectives of roles among team members.

4. Develop or Review the Mission Statement. A mission statement is a clear, concise statement that describes why this team exists. It should be agreed upon by the family, school and other core team members who have an active role with the student (i.e., child welfare, mental health or probation). This simple statement should guide the team’s actions to ensure activities are connected to the mission. For example, a mission statement may read: “The student will live at home and succeed at ( neighborhood) school.” The development of the mission statement pulls the team together around a common purpose and frequently is the beginning of a positive partnership between the family and school or other agency representatives. Facilitators and teams may need to help families with a broad mission that reflects a truly improved quality of life. What Information Do We Have or Need to Make Decisions?

5. Start meetings with strengths. All team meetings begin with a discussion and summary of strengths of the student and family. The initial meeting begins with a summary of strengths identified during initial conversations. The facilitator ensures that different perspectives of the youth’s strengths (i.e., teacher, student, family) are addressed across multiple life domains. Strengths of the family, teachers and other providers are encouraged as well. All strengths should be stated in specific and functional terms (e.g. often stands up for classmates who are being bullied by others) as opposed to a list of adjectives (e.g. nice kid ). The strength profile should be reviewed and new strengths should be added at all subsequent meetings. This includes celebrating successes of the team or individual team member accomplishments. Facilitators typically provide or create a visual of the strength profile at the meeting using chart paper, a wall board or distribute copies of a strength summary on a sheet of paper (see page 2 of CTPF). Participants are always asked to add more strengths at this stage of the meeting.

6. Identify Needs Across Life Domains. Based on information obtained during initial conversations, the facilitator summarizes the issues and perspectives of the core team members, pointing out similarities and differences of perspectives among team members. The facilitator guides the team in summarizing all the needs of the student/family across life domains (e.g., safety, social, academic, behavioral). The facilitator leads the team toward typical needs or replacement behaviors with questions such as “What does this student need to function more like a typical student who is doing OK in our school and community”. The student, family and teacher are encouraged to express all needs they perceive as necessary for the student to succeed. The facilitator’s focus should be to identify which needs the team can agree to work on together as a team.

What Do We Want/Need to Accomplish?

7. Prioritizing Needs. After reviewing all the needs identified by collective team members, the team then collectively decides which needs will receive immediate action planning at the current meeting. The people who spend the most time with the youth and those who have the most responsibility for the youth should have the most say in which needs are prioritized for action planning. The team will need to sort through the complete list of needs to determine immediate priorities and which needs require more information before they can design strategies. See Handout 5.4 for questions to guide this prioritizing of needs.

What Action Do We Need/Want to Take and When?

8. Action Planning. The team develops specific strategies designed to meet prioritized needs with clearly defined outcomes. Initial actions may address gathering additional information (e.g., functional behavioral assessment, reading assessment, medical evaluation) so that interventions may be designed. For other need areas, the team may have enough information to immediately move to action planning (e.g. daily communication strategy between home and school, transportation to medical appointments, specific instructional or behavioral interventions). During the action planning, the team focuses on the most efficient, practical, and natural means for accomplishing the outcome they have agreed upon. It is important that the team:

• Stay focused on the need and brainstorm different ways to accomplish needs rather than just proposing categorical service options that have been traditionally available.
  
• Ensure that strengths and natural supports are evident in every strategy the team proposes.
  
• Ensure that each action/strategy has a clearly defined outcome (How will we know if it is working?) and specify who will do what, when and where.

How Will We Decide if it is Working and What to do Next?

9. Assign Tasks/timelines, Ensure Commitment and Set Next Meeting Date. The person or persons responsible for implementing given actions must take ownership of the intervention design. Facilitators must ask team members (e.g.,. families, teachers) whether the proposed action will work for them. Teams must take the time to confirm commitment to task(s) completion and ensure common understanding of the intervention’s procedures by those committed to implementation. Ask family (or teacher) “Is this going to work for you?” The person who is supposed to implement the strategy needs to be actively involved in designing it; or it probably won’t work! The date for the next meeting should be set at the current meeting, based on timeframes needed for implementing and monitoring the interventions agreed to by the team. Page 5 of the CTPF has a section to indicate a targeted review date which is the date the team decides to meet again to review progress.

• Document, Revise, Monitor. A clear consensus regarding needs, strategies, and outcomes, sets the context for a defined team evaluation/monitoring process. Each meeting should begin with a review and rating of progress including actions defined at the previous meeting. If a need has not been met to the team’s satisfaction, a process of refining, redesigning or reevaluating available data should take place. Teams need to accurately define needs and outcomes and collect baseline data as well as data after the intervention has been implemented so they can determine if progress has been made to their satisfaction.