Development and Validation of a Wraparound Parent Partner Fidelity Tool

Parent partners are parents or caregivers such as foster parents who have had success in dealing with a difficult child in a child welfare, mental health, or probation system and who become key players on Wraparound teams for families with youths with emotional or behavioral disabilities who are in out-of-home care. Although many studies have been conducted on the Wraparound model, none of them have described the parent partner’s role and fidelity to the model. The Parent Partner Fidelity Tool (PPFT) was developed to address this gap in Wraparound research; it is the first tool designed to measure parent partner adherence to the Wraparound model and identify parent partner training and support needs. The 28-item PPFT captures parent partner activities related to the four Wraparound phases designated by the National Wraparound Initiative: engagement, planning, implementation, and transition. Similar PPFT versions are completed by Wraparound facilitators, parent partners, and parents/caregivers to provide multiple perspectives on the parent partner’s work. The PPFT pilot testing project was conducted with 14 California Wraparound programs. Analyses of the 585 responses showed good reliability and validity for the PPFT, indicating that it is a psychometrically sound tool.