High Fidelity Wraparound

Wraparound is an ecologically based approach to care planning designed to support young people with complex needs and their families. The process is grounded in a family empowerment philosophy and delivered through a dedicated care coordinator who organizes services, supports, and natural resources in true partnership with the child, youth, young adult, and/or family.

Care coordination involves the deliberate organization of services and supports to ensure continuity of care across settings, and to facilitate appropriate access and delivery of needed social, behavioral, and somatic health care. This includes ongoing engagement, review, and adjustment of relevant providers, natural supports, and other resources to successfully align needs with services.

Visit the National Wraparound Implementation Center website

Not all Wraparound is the same. High Fidelity Wraparound (HFW) means Wraparound delivered the way it was designed with adherence to the core principles, structured phases, and quality standards that the research shows lead to better outcomes for youth and families. Fidelity is measured through validated tools that assess whether the process is truly family-driven, strengths-based, and community-connected.

In Colorado, fidelity to the HFW model is actively monitored and supported to ensure families receive Wraparound that works, not just Wraparound in name only.

In Colorado, the Wraparound process is delivered in alignment with the National Wraparound Implementation Center (NWIC) High Fidelity Wraparound practice model and Colorado’s System of Care (CO-SOC) framework. When delivered to youth and families in CO-SOC, Wraparound is referred to as Enhanced High Fidelity Wraparound (EHFW).

The CO-SOC Workforce Capacity Center (WCC) at CSU will employ multiple Colorado-based Wraparound coaches who provide ongoing support to local facilitators and supervisors of EHFW across the state, ensuring local expertise and sustained implementation capacity within the Colorado System of Care. The coaches at the WCC will

work through a rigorous process to become NWIC certified and will be among a select group of nationally certified Wraparound coaches equipped to deliver the highest standard of coaching, training, and implementation support to Colorado providers and families.

Staff training is delivered through a structured series of NWIC foundational trainings designed for practitioners, facilitators, supervisors, administrators, and community stakeholders. Colorado staff access these trainings through the NWIC training calendar, which offers regularly scheduled virtual sessions across multiple time zones for flexible, convenient access statewide.

Coaching is delivered both in-person and virtually across a range of settings, including Wraparound team meetings, supervisory sessions, document reviews, and community engagement meetings, ensuring participants can apply learning directly in their roles.

Quality and Sustainability

High Fidelity Wraparound is more than a discrete service. It is a structured practice model that depends on strong implementation supports to maintain quality over time. In Colorado, this includes attention to training, coaching, supervision, and broader system supports that help reinforce consistent practice.

Colorado’s implementation approach is intended to support fidelity to the model while also strengthening the state’s capacity to sustain Wraparound over time through local coaching and workforce development infrastructure.

Required Colorado EHFW Trainings include:

For Facilitators and Supervisors:

• Wraparound Overview (1 hour, online at Absorb LMS)
• Team Roles in Wraparound (1 hour, online at Absorb LMS)
• SOC Module 1: Introduction to Systems of Care (1 hour, online at Absorb LMS)
• 3-Day Introduction to Wraparound (24 hours)
• 1-Day Engagement in the Wraparound Process (8 hours)
• 2-Day Intermediate Wraparound: Improving Wraparound Practice (16 hours)

For Supervisors:

• 1-Day Supervision in Wraparound (8 hours)
• 2-Day Advancing Wraparound Practice: Supervising and Managing to Quality (16 hours)

For the full training catalog, scheduling, and registration, visit Innovations Institute and click online learning at the top of the page.

When implemented with fidelity, High Fidelity Wraparound has a strong evidence base demonstrating meaningful improvements for youth and families, including:

• Increased likelihood that young people with complex needs can remain in their homes and communities
• Better outcomes across mental health, school, home, and community functioning compared to similar youth not receiving Wraparound
• Significant cost savings by reducing time spent in high-cost out-of-home placements such as residential treatment centers or psychiatric hospitals

For a full summary of the research on Wraparound’s effectiveness and cost savings, visit the National Wraparound Initiative.

• National Wraparound Implementation Center (NWIC)
• Innovations Institute Wraparound Resources
• National Wraparound Initiative Research and Evidence

Core descriptions of the High Fidelity Wraparound model, including practice framework and training approach, are based on materials developed by the National Wraparound Implementation Center (NWIC). Colorado-specific content describes how the model is implemented within the Colorado System of Care.