About the Wraparound Process

Other Initiatives
Evidenced-Based Practices

Research and Training Center (RTC) for Children's Mental Health at the
University of South Florida. Click here for a paper that shows what
South Florida's RTC has to offer.
Note from Polly Nichols: First click School-Based Mental Health (SBMH)
in the left column under Resources. Then click the title under Resources in the right-hand
column where it says download now.

You will be interested to see that these authors describe PBS (or PBIS as it is more widely known)
as one of three major types of SBMH that are working in the US today. (The other two are
Adelman & Taylor's Systems of Care model, never fully realized, and the medical mental health
model. Some forms of this thrive in Iowa schools that have visiting clinicians or school-based clinics.

Of greatest interest to those who are working with top-of-the-triangle kids, the authors give us compiled
lists of evidence-based programs designed for helping children and teens with various problems, ages,
and levels of severity. These are all combined in the appendices, and the variety of programs and criteria
makes an interesting display of the many things that "evidence-based practice" can mean. All of them
are valid from one or another perspective. As not every problem can be prevented or fixed by by the
PBIS structure alone or even by wraparound planning, those concerned for students with the most
severe problems will find these resources valuable to look into.

Promising Practicing Network (click on this line)
Note from Polly Nichols: Another excellent resource for locating evidence-based programs for
specific students with serious emotional/behavioral disorders is the Promising Practicing Network (http://www.promisingpractices.net/).
For instance, that network has just added information on the PASCET program which is specifically for children who are depressed. It focuses on teaching them to use healthy, positive self-talk and to do pleasurable activities -- those are skills very specific to kids with depression, period. They're not covered by general PBS office-referral rules, encouragement, or systems, nor by specialized programming for kids who have anxiety or disruptive behavior problems.

Youngsters with mood disorders are not likely to be the kinds of acting-out kids whose families are generally offered wraparound planning, our #1 level 3 preference. But if you had one or a few kids with worrisome depression or dysthymia or even with a mood disorder IN COMBINATION with anxiety or ODD, it could be very helpful. The
research and follow-up checks indicate that this is so.

This isn't necessarily a recommendation for using PASCET; I haven't even looked at the manual, and the published research is too scant to measure up to the very highest EBP criteria. But it's an example of searching for what looks promising, the kind of specific resource you might want to access when the young people who are in your care for all those long school days need PBS Plus to help them with seriously troubled or troublesome thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. With careful training and by closely following the model that was actually researched (no sort-of following it with our own seat-of-the-pants modifications!), we can make the changes we used to think we had to send kids out-of-home to get--and were so disappointed when they came back to us pretty much the same as when they left.