The wraparound approach for students with emotional and behavioral disorders: Opportunities for school psychologists

Students with significant emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) present school personnel with complex challenges. For those students who present especially pervasive and chronic challenges, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has recommended comprehensive assessments and interventions that empower families and involve close collaboration with community‐based service providers. In recent years, wraparound has emerged as one approach to collaboratively developing interventions that are both family focused and ecologically comprehensive. As such, the approach is consonant with the mental health roles widely advocated for school psychologists in the professional literature. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the need for the wraparound approach and its theoretical foundations. We then detail the principles on which the approach is grounded and the specific procedures through which it comes to fruition. Finally, we discuss implications of the approach for school psychologists.