Programs
High-Fidelity Wraparound (HFW)
High-Fidelity Wraparound (HFW) is a process for care coordination that brings together the most important people in a youth/family's life to create a plan that works to address complex behavioral needs.
In Maine, this service is intended for youth up to the age of 21 diagnosed with Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED), Autism Spectrum Disorder, or related complex behavioral health conditions that have resulted in repeat hospitalization and/or challenges with housing instability, child welfare involvement, juvenile justice involvement, or adoption/placement disruption. A HFW team includes the youth and caregiver(s) as well as relatives, friends, religious or spiritual advisors, case workers, probation officers, teachers, and mental health professionals. Together, they work to help a family develop a plan aimed at meeting identified needs and move closer to their defined vision.
Each team has a HFW coordinator who guides the team through the process, a Family Support Specialist, and a Youth Support Specialist who use their own lived experience of parenting a child/youth with complex needs and/or navigating youth-serving systems themselves to support family engagement.
Ten Principles of High-Fidelity Wraparound
The wraparound process is a comprehensive, holistic approach to supporting children and families, emphasizing their voices and choices in planning. It involves a committed, team-based strategy that incorporates natural supports and collaboration, ensuring services are community-based and culturally competent. The process is individualized and strengths-based focusing on the family's well-being and aiming for sustainable outcomes. Regular monitoring of the plan's effectiveness ensures it remains responsive and relevant to the family's needs.
How it Works
HFW recognizes that our lives are multi-dimensional and very rarely can problems be solved in isolation. Any plan to help youth and families must consider all of these aspects as interrelated and interdependent. In the same way that behavioral problems may appear across multiple domains, so too can solutions.
The Phased Approach
Once enrolled in HFW, teams move through four phases to form trusting relationships and create and implement a plan to address each family's unique needs - beginning from a place of strength and capitalizing on what has been found to help, work and who has helped them in the past. Unlike traditional treatment programs, HFW does not have a set number of sessions or duration for services. The team is able to plan and together determine when the youth and family are confident in their ability to access and use the resources around them, informing when HFW is no longer necessary for the child's and family's needs to be met.
Education, research, and/or resources
Peer Connect
Peer Connect is Youth MOVE National's Youth Peer Support Training. Youth MOVE National is a youth-driven, chapter-based organization dedicated to uniting the voices of youth nationwide. Peer Connect provides a comprehensive infrastructure for implementing (or enhancing!) grounded youth peer support programming---from readiness, to core training, to continued education. This implementation model is designed to equip Youth Support Specialists, as well as those who supervise or work alongside them, with the necessary skills, knowledge, and practice approaches needed to ensure effective youth peer support programming in a variety of settings.
Education, research and/or resources
PEARLS
PEARLS is a workforce development model designed to support Family Support Specialist (FPS) through comprehensive coaching and training. Peer Parent support is a critical component of a comprehensive service array for youth- and family-serving systems partnering with families with children and youth with emotional, behavioral, or mental health needs.
The training is designed to provide participants with a balance of who they are and what they do. PPSPs will be asked to reflect on their own parent journey while also learning how to provide peer parent support. Training also focuses on the six core meta-skills, illustrated by the PEARLS acronym, that PPSPs will be able to demonstrate in each interaction with a parent.
Education, research and/or resources
Together with their partners, Innovations Institute develops white papers and briefs with best practice guidelines, scholarly papers on their research and evaluation results, and technical assistance documents for transforming public-serving systems. Below are some of their latest publications. You can also find numerous resources on Innovations, their learning management system, and on their YouTube channel.