This paper reports on a longitudinal, randomized control trial of a pilot Wraparound program for youth who were in foster care and involved in the juvenile justice system; it provides the authors’ research methodology, outcomes, and implications for practice.
Wraparound care coordination for youth with serious emotional and behavioral challenges has been implemented in every state and in many child-serving contexts, but evidence from rigorous effectiveness studies is scarce. To address this issue, the authors conducted a 20-month longitudinal randomized control trial of a pilot Wraparound program for youth in foster care and involved in the juvenile justice system, comparing outcomes with youth receiving community “treatment as usual” (TAU). Youth in both groups experienced significantly improved outcomes, including fewer arrests and greater residential stability. Wraparound youth were less likely to be rearrested, and survival analysis found they went longer before doing so than TAU youth. Wraparound youth were also more likely to be educationally on track than TAU youth by the end of the study. Although these findings were nonsignificant due to small sample sizes, effect sizes were medium to large, and no such trends were found for the TAU group. The authors discuss implications for Wraparound’s implementation and effectiveness, as well as the strengths and limitations of conducting a randomized control trial in “real-world” systems. Publisher Abstract Provided