Wraparound services have long been celebrated as the gold standard for coordinating care for youth and families with complex needs. At its best, wraparound is a family-driven, team-based approach that integrates multiple systems of care, helping clients navigate mental health, education, and social services simultaneously.

Yet, despite decades of use and research, wraparound doesn’t work for all clients. Many families who could benefit the most never fully engage—or even start services. One agency leader recently shared that they lose 40% of referrals at intake. Others cycle in and out, with one leader reporting that 70% of their wrap families return to intensive services within a year. Some families linger in programs for years without achieving meaningful outcomes. This isn’t a failure of the model’s principles; it reflects a simple but critical truth: wraparound only works for clients who are ready and motivated to change, and who believe they can change.

The Engagement Gap

Wraparound’s success hinges on client and family engagement. When families are actively involved, committed to the process, and believe in their own ability to improve their circumstances, wraparound achieves impressive outcomes, like better child behavior, placement stability, and parent satisfaction (Bruns, Pullmann, Sather, Brinson, & Ramey, 2015).

But engagement is where the model often falters. Research and practitioner experience consistently show that a significant portion of families referred to wraparound services either never attend initial meetings or drop out early (Walker, 2008). Many others remain in services but make minimal progress, not because they are unwilling to engage, but because the system doesn’t meet them where they are in terms of readiness and motivation.

This is a critical distinction. Wraparound is powerful, but it assumes a starting point: the family is at least somewhat prepared and confident that change is possible. Without this foundation, even the most high-fidelity wraparound implementation struggles to move the needle.

Why Motivation Matters

Behavioral changes don’t happen because you provide services. It happens when there is alignment between those services and a client’s internal motivation. Clients who don’t believe change is possible or who feel ambivalent about altering patterns of behavior are unlikely to engage meaningfully in wraparound plans, no matter how well-structured or comprehensive.

This is where Motivational Interviewing (MI) comes in. MI is a client-centered, evidence-based approach specifically designed to address ambivalence and enhance intrinsic motivation (Miller & Rollnick, 2013). Its effectiveness is well-documented across behavioral health, mental health, and medical adherence contexts (Lundahl, Kunz, Brownell, Tollefson, & Burke, 2010).

MI doesn’t impose change; it elicits change. Through collaborative conversations, reflective listening, and strategic use of questions and affirmations, MI helps clients resolve ambivalence, increase self-efficacy, and articulate their own reasons for change. In short, it primes clients to fully engage with interventions like wraparound, giving them the internal drive to follow through on the plans developed by the care team.

MI Is the Obvious Fix

If engagement is the missing link in wraparound, MI is the obvious tool to address it. MI aligns perfectly with wraparound’s values: both are collaborative, client-centered, and goal-oriented. Integrating MI can help ensure that families:

• Attend initial meetings and orientation sessions.
• Participate actively in planning and team meetings.
• Commit to completing service plans.
• Maintain behavioral changes after services conclude.

For families struggling with readiness, MI can transform wraparound from a checklist-driven process into a truly meaningful, motivational experience. It addresses the root barrier that often prevents families from benefiting from wraparound in the first place.

Why Training Wrap Staff in MI Alone Isn’t Enough

It might seem simple: train your wraparound staff in MI, and engagement improves. But the reality is more complicated. Early attempts to layer MI onto wraparound by training staff in MI separately have produced disappointing results.

Staff may learn MI techniques like open-ended questions, reflections, affirmations, but without a cohesive framework, these skills are applied inconsistently or superficially. Worse, misaligned or piecemeal MI can inadvertently overwhelm staff, confuse clients, reduce engagement, and create a mismatch between the family’s needs and the services provided. The result? Engagement and outcomes may actually decrease rather than improve. As does staff satisfaction.

This is not a failure of MI itself; rather, it’s a failure to integrate MI thoughtfully into the wraparound process. To be effective, MI cannot be an add-on. It must be embedded intentionally into every step of wraparound planning, coaching, and supervision.

The Path Forward: MiiWrap

The engagement problem in wraparound is not a failure of the model’s principles. It’s a reflection of the reality that wraparound alone only works for clients who are ready, motivated, and confident they can change. MiiWrap (Motivational Interviewing-informed Wraparound) was designed to solve this problem by fully integrating MI into the wraparound process.

MiiWrap is not simply “wraparound plus MI.” It represents a deliberate, intentional integration of two complex models into a coherent, unified approach. This required years of development, iterative testing, and extensive feedback from practitioners, families, and wraparound experts. MI’s relational spirit and techniques are embedded into every phase of wraparound, from intake and team planning to coaching and supervision. The integration ensures that clients’ ambivalence, readiness, and motivation are addressed consistently across all interactions, creating a model that actually works for more families.

Early evidence shows that programs using MiiWrap achieve higher engagement and completion rates compared to traditional wraparound services. Families are more likely to attend meetings, actively participate in planning, and follow through on service plans. Facilitators report that the integrated model reduces confusion, supports consistent practice, and strengthens outcomes across the board (Rast, 2020).

The takeaway is clear: MiiWrap is the solution. It is the result of a painstaking, intentional process to unify MI and wraparound into a single, effective model; not a quick add-on or a simple training exercise. For organizations committed to improving engagement and outcomes, MiiWrap provides a ready-to-use, research-informed approach that allows wraparound to deliver on its promise for all families, not just the ones already motivated to change.

References

Bruns, E. J., Pullmann, M. D., Sather, A., Brinson, R., & Ramey, M. (2015). Effectiveness of wraparound versus case management for children and adolescents: Results of a randomized study. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 42(3), 309–322. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-014-0561-3

Lundahl, B., Kunz, C., Brownell, C., Tollefson, D., & Burke, B. L. (2010). A meta-analysis of Motivational Interviewing: Twenty-five years of empirical studies. Research on Social Work Practice, 20(2), 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731509347850

Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational Interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Rast, J. (2020). Integrating Wraparound and Motivational Interviewing: The development of MiiWrap. Retrieved from https://www.vroonvdb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Integrating-Wrap-with-MI.pdf

Walker, J. S. (2008). How, and why, does wraparound work: A theory of change. In National Wraparound Initiative Resource Guide (pp. 1–21). Portland State University.