Consultation for counties
OUT-OF-County WRAP and Support

Click for a Word version of this page, and here for a Brochure.

Click for a Video recommending County Implementation.

Our Adoption Wraparound service is California's pilot program of intensive support for families who have adopted children from the foster care system and are experiencing significant difficulties. Beginning in 2001 in Santa Clara County, expanding to Monterey County at the beginning of 2004 and Orange County in 2007, Adoption Assistance Wraparound has now served over 200 families of whom 182 have graduated, with  success rates of varying from 68% to 92% depending on County. We are working with other Counties that have expressed interest in replicating our models, and we are available for consultation on design and implementation issues and strategies.

Kinship Center's implementation of Adoption Wraparound funded through the Adoption Assistance Program (AAP)

Families Served:

Adoption Assistance Wraparound is provided to families who receive, or are eligible for, subsidy payment (AAP) on behalf of their adopted child who is either:

1. At risk of placement in a level 10 or greater group home or institution within the next year, or

2. Presently placed in a group home or institution and is ready to transition home.

The program serves the needs of the entire family, regardless of which child was initially identified.

Program Description:

Adoption Wraparound is strength-based, family-driven, flexible, creative, committed to permanence, and adoption competent. Goals are developed based on family needs, identified within regular family Team meetings, coordinated by a Wraparound Facilitator. Tasks are assigned by the team, and may include actions to be carried out by family members, community members, assistants hired by the family, hired professionals, and agency staff. Wrap funds are allocated flexibly and targeted to meet established needs. Funds are managed conservatively to ensure that they will be available in the event of unusual need. If the child eventually needs residential placement then Wraparound pays for that service and continues to work on the goals. 

Essential Components:

There is a set of Wraparound Standards established by the State that must be in place across the program, and within each individual family team. Those standards can be found on our Web Site.  Primary among these are the reliance on family and individual strengths to effect change, family ownership of both the plan and process, and flexibility in approach. 

Setting:

Assistance is provided in any setting chosen by the family, and is usually provided by both professionals and system representatives, and members of the adoptive family’s community. Planning and coordination of services occurs in each family’s Team, comprised minimally of the parents, a facilitator, and a parent partner. Some teams may be three or four people and others eight or ten. Children are usually team members depending on age. 

Funding Source:

Wraparound is funded by Adoption Assistance Program dollars that are diverted from each County’s budget intended to support residential placement. In other words, money that would have been spent on an institution is instead spent on supporting the child within their family and community. The funding is limited to a period of eighteen months, but can be re-established should another crisis arise creating a new risk of placement.  The funds are flexible and can be pooled so that high financial need for one family can be met from funds remaining from another family's Wrap. Funds that remain at the end of the eighteen-month Wraparound period become available to support new families, or can be allocated to other child welfare services. In the case of our present  programs, the residual funds support general post-adoption service activities in Santa Clara County and "Family Ties", the Kinship Support program in Monterey County.

Implementation Strategy:

Post-adoption services for challenging children are rare indeed, and those that exist are poorly funded. Given the accelerated pace of adoption for the nation’s foster children the need for such service has become obvious. Wraparound will at first glance seem an expensive proposition. It is vital that stakeholders at all levels in the local government systems recognize that Wraparound funds are not new money. They are funds that are already budgeted to be spent on residential placement, often outside the local community and county. Keeping those funds “at home” and available for new child welfare projects, at the same time improving the stability and permanence of adoptive families, and thus reducing the risk of more costly residential expenditures in the future, have all been shown to be powerful arguments supporting implementation.

Out of County Service:

Many adoptive families do not live in the County that is responsible for the child's AAP, either because they were inter-county placements or because the family has since moved. We provide Adoption Wraparound to any County anywhere in California, and potentially out of State. Although we most often work on behalf of families in the Bay Area, Central Coast and the Southland we also offer "long-range Wrap" to geographically distant families throughout the State. Click for details of how to establish out-of-County AAP Wrap.

Consultation Services:

Kinship Center is offering three levels of consultation, depending on the specific and unique needs of each County.

• The Consultation Level provides a review of the County’s needs for Adoption Wraparound and the quality and availability of existing community resources, followed by discussion and recommendations for implementation.

• The Implementation Level provides for the delivery of a complete Adoption Wraparound program, customized to meet specific County requirements, including procedures, forms, training and administrative management.

• The Training Level, offering CDSS-required Wraparound training for all levels of staff, with a specialty in the application of Wraparound with adoptive families. This training was initially provided at four sites across the State in January and February 2009.

Adoption Wraparound at AFTER ©2010 Kinship Center™
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Last updated October 29th, 2010