To support effective and consistent Wraparound practice across the state of Ohio the following training/work force development activities are recommended. The activity areas fall into several broader categories; Training, Coaching, and Peer to peer learning opportunities
Peer–to–Peer Learning Opportunities:
The primary strategy in this area has been the development and continued support of “Learning Communities” that began as four regional face–to–face sessions occurring every other month. As the pandemic has transitioned these activities to a virtual platform there are three Learning communities in the state that are meeting monthly. The three communities are identified as the NE/SE Learning Community, NW/SW Learning community (picking up participants form the so labelled parts of the state), and a Supervisor’s Learning Community.
These Learning Communities are established to promote peer–to–peer learning related to the implementation and supervision of wraparound initiatives in participating counties. Participation has consistently involved 20 – 25 facilitators and 15 – 20 supervisors each month. The emphasis has been on peer learning and the development of supporting practice communities, important because of the small sized implementation in many Ohio Counties.
Coaching Support to individual counties and their staff:
Ohio Wraparound implementation has been deeply impacted by individual county responses to the model. While efforts continue to assure alignment across counties and regions of the state around practice fidelity it remains important to make available individualized support from experienced practitioners of Wraparound that can help counties and staff adapt the fidelity of the process to their unique settings and structures.
There has, for several years, been access to a small cadre of “coaches” who can meet this need. Moving forward it is anticipated that this resource will be useful to many counties and organizations as this state’s support of Wraparound continues to formalize and the work to align and assure consistency of practice across the state remains a priority.
(Coaching activities are scheduled on an individualized basis and thus will not be reflected in the attached calendar listings)
Wraparound Training:
A comprehensive approach to training related to effective Wraparound development has several foci and audiences. These are designed to address a variety of needs for a variety of audiences.
Community Awareness Training:
As communities develop and sustain capacity to implement Wraparound consistently and effectively several “community” training needs exist. Two levels of activity in this scope are easily identified; 1) training for people who may serve on teams, and 2) training for potential and active recipient families. Ideally each region or county will over time develop its own capacity to integrate these training needs into their cross-system community activities. As Ohio’s capacity for Wraparound grows it will be important to provide an opportunity for communities to access this content in a centralized or regional platform.
Team Member Training:
Potential team members in community systems, agencies, and other constituencies need access to basic information about what wraparound is, what the expectations of participating in a wraparound team are, and how they fit into your role with a family. Short, focused 90-minute sessions can be offered via virtual platform to the state or individual regions as needed. Frequency of these sessions will need to be adapted but a minimum of a monthly offering is included in this description.
Participant Family Trainings:
An informed consumer is more effective at getting the help they need than a less informed consumer. Training on the process, expectations, and potential benefits and risks in a wraparound process targeted for participating families has several potential benefits. This first is an informed and invested partner in the process, the second is more accurate words of mouth translation of the concepts to potential customers that families receiving wraparound have contact with, and the third is a more efficient facilitator as they can spend less time describing the process to participants. These trainings ideally should happen in individual communities but as capacity grows, they can be offered regionally on a monthly basis so families being invite to the wraparound process have a way to learn about wraparound and connecting to other families.
Wraparound Staff Training
Most obvious, and on-going in nature, is the training for developing and growing skilled facilitators and managers of Wraparound. Supporting a vibrant workforce will require access to both initial or orientation training and ongoing skills building and reinforcement opportunities for both facilitators and supervisors. “Tiers” of training content for facilitators and supervisors are described below.
Core Facilitator Training:
A series comprised of four large group didactic sessions coupled with companion small group application sessions between the didactic sessions. The focus of the series is the development of basic level skills and process understandings to allow facilitators and supervisors to offer wraparound processes in their own community. This series will be offered on a quarterly basis and can be offered more frequently should the need arise. The series is structured around the four stages of Wraparound often titled Hello, Help, Healing and Hope.
Advanced Facilitator Trainings;
These trainings, designed for staff operating in the field with implementation experience, have and will offer an array of topics revisiting and building on core concepts first developed in the orientation training series. These may be single or multi-session units, depending on the topic and they will be calendared so that each month facilitators will have a skill development option to opt into. Topics can be scheduled across a year based on a variety of features ranging from community request to responding to fidelity data concerns.
Based on identified needs, training topics can include:
• Refining your Approach to Strengths
• Using Need Statements to Guide Plans of Care
• Measuring and Maintaining Progress
• Managing Effective Teams
• Knowing when to End and Making it Happen
• Parent and Youth Peer Supports and the Wraparound Process
• Building the Right Level of Customization
• Managing Challenging Team Members
Supervisor Orientation Training:
This training series, to be offered at least once a year, is designed to provide supervisors with tools and understandings to effectively support staff in their wraparound practice. It includes topics that range from effective on-boarding processes, to maintaining staff effectiveness in quality teams and plans, to supervising to the process rather than the family.
Advanced Supervisor Trainings:
These training designed for supervisors who are in total or in part of their work supervising staff who implement the wraparound process directly with families. Single or multi-session formats will be used to further supervisor understanding and skills sets related to the unique challenges posed in supervising and supporting Wraparound. Topics can be scheduled based on request or fidelity data gathered in a region or the state as a whole. The schedule will include at least one “advanced” supervisor session each quarter.
Based on identified needs, training topics can include:
• Helping Staff Maintain Effective Teams
• Helping Staff Maintain Effective Plans
• Managing to Quality Indicators in Wraparound
• Using Data to Support Implementation
• Addressing Community Partner Challenges
• Fidelity Tools and Implementation Strategies
Capacity Development Series
As Ohio approaches a period of significant expansion of services for multisystem youth, High-Fidelity Wraparound will be the core planning process utilized by the state to coordinate the delivery of these services. To help counties integrate the array of new statewide initiatives (MSY, OhioRISE; FFPSA, FCFC modernization) CIP, CWRU will facilitate local community planning of implementation strategies utilizing expert support teams.
Community-Level Infrastructure Development
This four-session series is targeted at supporting local leadership teams through a guided examination of their current infrastructure to support Wraparound implementation in their community. This series is designed to assist counties in developing and enhancing their current Wraparound infrastructure to respond to the anticipated increase in demand for Wraparound arising from a number of new state initiatives, such as OhioRISE, FCFC Modernization, FFPSA, and Governor DeWine’s initiatives for multisystem youth.
There will be four sessions facilitated by expert support teams (Practice, Supervisory, and Administrative Experts)
- Session One: Managing Your Community Partnerships; Aligning Collaborative Action to Support Wraparound Development; Integrating initiatives and visioning possibilities (MSY, OhioRISE; FFPSA, FCFC modernization)
Session Two: Necessary and Helpful Fiscal Policies and Sustainability
Session Three: Developing Access to Needed Services and Supports; Building and Maintaining Human Resource Capacity
Session Four: Assuring Accountability