WrapAround is all about partnerships – and we are deeply grateful to all of our WrapAround partners, especially innumerable partners and volunteers in the WrapAround Hamilton program. It truly does “take a community to raise a child.”
WrapAround Partnerships
WrapAround Hamilton
Melrose United Church
Neighbourlink Chatham-Kent
Aboriginal Healing and Outreach
We are proud to have provided start-up assistance to this program from 2008 to 2010, operated on behalf of the urban Aboriginal community in downtown Hamilton by the Native Women’s Centre. The program blended traditional healing practices with WrapAround—an approach which is quickly gaining interest from Aboriginal communities across Canada.
System-level Partnerships include:
Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health
Shalem is deeply grateful to the Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health for having awarded us two years of WrapAround evaluation grants – “Planning” and “Doing” grants. With the support of the Centre of Excellence (funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Children and Youth Services), we developed, adapted and adopted a series of instruments designed to evaluate the mental health outcomes of our WrapAround work. A key series of instruments measures resilience – the ability of people to bounce back from adverse circumstances.
Dr. Michael Ungar
Dr. Ungar of Dalhousie University is a central partner to Shalem in our resilience work. Shalem is grateful for the support and partnership in our WrapAround work of Dr. Michael Ungar, one of the leading researchers internationally in the study of resilience (the ability to bounce back) in children and youth.
An exciting outcome of this work has been the publication of a professional journal outcome evaluation study of Shalem’s WrapAround Hamilton work, “Canadian WrapAround: A Case Study of AVolunteer-Driven, Community-Based Approach for Families, Children, and Youth with Complex Needs in Hamilton, Ontario”, [*GET LINK] one of our Shalem Centre of Excellence and Learning [*GET LINK] publications.
System-level Partnerships include:
U.S. National WrapAround Initiative
Dr. Eric Bruns and the U.S. National WrapAround Initiative in the use of their WrapAround Fidelity Index (WFI). The WFI measures whether or not we are doing “high fidelity” WrapAround – that is, WrapAround that is true to WrapAround values and principles.
WrapAround Research and Evaluation Network (WREN)
Shalem is an active participant in the WrapAround Research and Evaluation Network (WREN), consisting of Shalem, WrapAround Northumberland and Catulpa WrapAround. Each of us was in receipt of two years of funding support from the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health. Combining our data is giving us a robust data set. We are expanding the WREN network across Canada. The Centre of Excellence is interested in WREN’s strength-based approach to outcome evaluation.
WrapAround Association of Ontario
The WrapAround Association of Ontario is made up of WrapAround initiatives around Ontario (approximately 18). It offers rich networking and practice development opportunities for WrapAround participants in Ontario. Shalem’s Mary Charles serves as its Co-Chair.
Wrap Canada
Wrap Canada is non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting best practices in WrapAround across Canada. Wrap Canada is active developing a “made in Canada” WrapAround model, together with training and coaching materials, in partnership with provincial associations and networks (such as the WrapAround Association of Ontario). Wrap Canada provides certification of trainers, facilitators and coaches and helps to define Canadian standards of practice. Shalem’s Executive Director Mark Vander Vennen is a Founding Board Chair and current Board member, and he is Co-Director of Wrap Canada’s Canadian WrapAround Training Institute.
Andrew Debicki
Shalem is blessed to have had Andrew Debicki, the leading person in WrapAround development in Canada, on our staff as a treasured friend and colleague. He died tragically and suddenly on February 10, 2016. His legacy and work continues to be a strong presence at Shalem and in the WrapAround community across Canada. For a tribute to Andrew, click here.
“I was experiencing difficulty with my adopted son with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and I asked to become involved with WrapAround. The facilitator came to my home and she was very generous with her time. She guided me through the team. I like that it builds on strengths and the teamwork gave me confidence. People were critical of how I handled my son and I had no confidence. I was a single parent when I adopted him. I have now found strategies to help and found a place in my son’s life. The process has been so successful—I am doing cartwheels and WrapAround has “grounded me”. My husband has been accepting of the change and we are going to make it!
