John Y. Powell

Wraparound—The Wave of the Future: Theoretical and Professional Practice Implications for Children and Families with Complex Needs

The wraparound process provides a contemporary perspective on providing mental health and related services to children and families with complex needs. Wraparound is a strengths-based, family driven orientation that focuses on the uniqueness of each child and family. In this article, the professionals role in the wraparound process is highlighted. Part 1 offers a historical perspective; political and economic implications atfederal, state, and community levels focusing on wraparound; and summarizes research outcome data associated with its use. Part 2 emphasizes clinical practice implicationsforfamily nurses or service providers in other disciplines who work with these children and families. A case study demonstrates how structural family therapy may be used as a theoretical framework in concert with the wraparound process.

A Schema for Family-Centered Practice

The emergence of family-centered practice, including family-based and family-preservation services, is a promising development in human services (Laird, 1995), with the potential to revitalize child-welfare agencies (Cole, 1995). The vigorous, diverse development of family-centered helping approaches in social work, family therapy, and other disciplines is producing a rich, but at times perplexing, variety of therapeutic approaches (see Hartman & Laird, 1983; Laird. 1995; Nichols & Schwartz, 1995). Family-centered practices diversity presents practitioners with a problem: How does a family- centered helper find his or her way amid a dazzling assortment of options.

In Quest of an Interdisciplinary Helping Process Framework for Collaborative Practice in Systems of Care

SUMMARY The “‘Heart and Soul of Change’: Therapies for a New Century” interdisciplinary symposium developed from a personal dream. The dream grew out of a collaborative, community-wide “system of care” project which helped children with serious emotional disturbances and their families receive comprehensive services. To support the communitys system of care project, East Carolina University assembled a team of faculty from a cross-section of professional “helping” disciplines. A core faculty group accepted the responsibility of developing a curriculum and teaching an interdisciplinary, collaborative practice course. They soon realized that professional literature lacked conceptual frameworks that could guide professionals from various disciplines who practice in “systems of care” or use “wraparound” techniques. In such settings, professionals are expected to collaborate together and be “partners with families.” As a result, they decided to bring together Dr. Scott D. Miller and Dr. James K. Whittaker to lead a symposium to help build a unifying framework for collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. Using a personal format, this essay tells how the symposium developed, and it gives a brief overview of its presentations. Finally it concludes with several post-symposium questions addressed to Dr. Miller and Dr. Whittaker that help further develop a framework for interdisciplinary, collaborative practice. This information will be of use to serve providers as they attempt to develop a framework for their work. Further, it is expected that the questions addressed in this essay are questions that all service providers need to consider as they work collaboratively with children and families.

Words Can Be Powerful: Changing the Words of Helping to Enhance Systems of Care

SUMMARY In this paper, the schema for family-centered practice is proposed as a tool that would make it easier for workers to practice according to system of care values and principles. The use of a system of care model of practice requires both providers and consumers of services to make a paradigm shift in their thinking about how assistance is conveyed. The model emphasizes forging a partnership between service providers and consumers rather than founding the helping relationship on a more traditional hierarchical approach that places the provider in the role of expert. Unfortunately, much of the language used by the helping professions reinforces a more conventional provider-as-expert approach. To assist providers and consumers in making the necessary paradigm shift away from the provider-as-expert approach, the authors propose using a schema for family-centered practice (schema). The schema, comprised of six steps (Joining gt; Discovery gt; Changing gt; Celebrating gt; Separating gt; Reflection), promotes the use of a new user-friendly language format, which is consistent with system of cares thinking and practice focus on partnering consumers and service providers. The values of the schema as a tool for use in system of care work along with descriptions of the experiences of service providers and consumers in using the schema are included as are suggestions for its use.

Book Review: Transrecial Adoptees and Their Families: A Study of Identity and CommitmentTransrecial Adoptees and Their Families: A Study of Identity and Commitment. By SimonRita J. and AltsteinHoward. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1987. 150 pp.

Transracial Adoptees and Their Families is an important but troubling book. The authors convincingly argue that transracial adoptions can lead to satisfying and lasting family relationships. However, such placements have been severely curtailed because of opposition from some members of minority groups. Clearly many minority children drifting about the foster-care system need the love, identity, and belonging that adoption can provide. In addition, de facto decisions by some agencies not to place children transracially violate our laws and constitutional principles. This book is based upon a longitudinal study that was begun more than twelve years ago. Surveying a sample of adopted children and their families on three occasions, this report sheds significant light on how they fared, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The children, now adolescents, were also interviewed. The book thus contains rich data on adoptions generally and insights into these families. The findings confirm that racially different children and families can in most instances transcend social and cultural obstacles to bond together as a family. In addition, these meaningful relationships were forged from intimate family living with its broad spectrum of emotions. Logically arranged, Transracial Adoptees begins with an overview of information about transracial adoptions-statistical data, legal issues, agency practices. and positions of professional organizations. The final section surveys significant issues: abortion, contraception, teenage birth rates, intercountry adoptions, and single-parent adoptions. These two sections complement the vital center of this volume, in which one gains valuable insights into the experience of growing up in a racially mixed adoptive home. An important question asked of adoptive parents was whether they would urge others to adopt transracially. Eighty-six percent answered affirmatively, but they warned adopters first to clarify their motives and values. The advantage of using a longitudinal comparison is evident as the responses to this question are analyzed. In a twelve-year period, only a four percent decline (from 90 percent to 86 percent) occurred among those who would encourage others to adopt transracially. Considering that these parents had been “stung” by attacks from members of some minority groups and had been further battered by the realities of parenting adolescents, it is noteworthy that they continued to believe that transracial adoption “was right and good for their children.” Also of significance is information concerning the well-being of transracially adopted children. On measures of self-esteem, no statistical differences were found between transracially adopted, biological, and other children who were adopted within their own racial groups. The transracially adopted children were as well integrated into their families as were the other children, as illustrated, for example, by their acceptance by extended family members. Transracial adoptees “do not sense that they are outsiders or that they are not accepted” by grandparents or aunts and uncles. The general impression conveyed by Simon and Altstein is that