High Fidelity Wraparound is built on ten core principles that guide how families and youth receive support. The community-based principle means that services and supports happen in the most inclusive, responsive, accessible, and least restrictive environments possible. This principle reinforces that healing and growth happen best when families remain connected to their communities.
What “Community-Based” Means in High Fidelity Wraparound
In Wraparound, “community-based” means that services and supports are designed to help families right where they live. Being community-based means that the community itself is part of the solution—local organizations, faith groups, cultural supports, mentors, extended family and neighbors play a vital role alongside the formal systems of care. Defining and setting up care settings this way will help your family stay connected to your community and embedded in your natural support system.
How a Community-Based Approach Facilitates Success
Stability and Belonging
Youth do better when they can remain in familiar environments and maintain existing relationships when possible.
Natural Supports
Communities provide organic, long-term supports that last beyond the life of a family’s care plan.
Cultural Relevance
Local community connections often align with the family’s traditions, language, and cultural practices, making the care plan more authentic and effective.
Families thrive when supports are not separate from daily life but built into the community settings where they live, learn, and grow.
How Your Team Will Implement Community-Based Services
Some of the ways your care team might implement community-based services include:
- Partnering with your school and local community center to host or implement activities in accessible and comfortable settings.
- Using natural supports including friends, extended family, faith communities and leadership councils rather than relying solely on formal services outside of your community.
- Involving youth in decision-making, so support aligns with their everyday experiences.
- Building cultural connections, ensuring services honor the family’s identity and traditions.
How the Community-Based Principle Helps Your Family
Families benefit from this principle in many ways:
- Belonging: Families remain part of their communities and social circles.
- Convenience: Families save time and stress by receiving help close to home.
- Confidence: Supports are practiced in real-life settings, making skills easier to apply long-term.
- Stability: Youth stay in familiar surroundings, minimizing disruption.
- Lasting Connection: Families become more engaged with community resources, building networks of support that continue after formal wraparound ends.
The wraparound team implements service and support strategies that take place in the most inclusive, most responsive, most accessible, and least restrictive settings possible.
The Community-Based principle reflects Wraparound’s belief that lasting healing happens in connection with your community. The community-based principle ensures that wraparound services are not removed from your every day life. Instead, supports are defined that are sustainable and culturally-relevant. By keeping families connected to their homes, schools, and communities, wraparound helps them thrive long-term as they continue to grow.
SOURCES
Bruns, E. J., Walker, J. S., & the National Wraparound Initiative Advisory Group. (2008). Ten Principles of the Wraparound Process. Portland, OR: National Wraparound Initiative.
Bruns, E. J., Suter, J. C., Leverentz-Brady, K., & Isakson, B. (2008). Does Wraparound Work? Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 17(1), 165-192. (Used to frame the benefits families experience when services are embedded in daily life.)
UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education, Human Services. Wraparound Services.
UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education, Human Services. California Wraparound Standards Toolkit.
UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education, Human Services. Defining Wraparound.
California Department of Social Services (CDSS). Wraparound Foster Care Program.
California Department of Developmental Services (DDS). Community Wraparound Services.
UC Davis Health. The Wraparound Program (Injury and Violence Prevention).
