DESCRIPTION 

The Wraparound Fidelity Index, Short Form (WFI-EZ) is a brief, self-report survey that measures adherence to the Wraparound principles and practice. The WFI-EZ was developed in 2011 to offset the burden of conducting lengthy interviews for the full WFI-4 protocol, and to include items that assess satisfaction and outcomes. There are four versions of the WFI-EZ: Parents/caregivers, care coordinators, youth, and team members. All 4 versions include items that assess fundamental elements of Wraparound practice (4 items), and questions that assess implementation quality (25 items). The implementation quality items are organized into 5 key elements that correspond to the National Wraparound implementation Center (NWIC) practice model: Effective teamwork, natural supports, needs-based, strengths-driven, and outcomes-based. In addition, the caregiver and youth versions of the survey assess participant satisfaction (4 items); and the caregiver and care coordinator versions assess youth outcomes (9 items).  

USES 

The WFI-EZ can be self-administered online, on paper, or via interview and takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Data result in quantitative summaries of Total Fidelity, Key Element Fidelity Scores, Satisfaction, and Outcomes. 

LEARN MORE 

The results of a recently published study found the WFI-EZ to be a reliable and valid assessment of Wraparound fidelity. The authors of the study analyzed data from 10,955 caregivers and 6,088 care coordinators who completed WFI-EZ assessments between 2011 and 2021. Based on these analyses, the authors concluded that the WFI-EZ showed excellent internal consistency, which means that individual items combine to measure the construct they were intended to measure (i.e., overall fidelity, satisfaction, and adherence to the five key elements). In addition, the study showed excellent two-week test-retest reliability for caregivers and acceptable reliability for care coordinators. Analyses related to validity showed that WFI-EZ scores were related to known indicators of high-quality Wraparound implementation as expected. Finally, a factor analysis identified ways in which some of the WFI-EZ items could be reconceptualized in the future, possibly leading to a shorter and more streamlined version of the instrument. Together, these findings suggest that current WFI-EZ users can be confident that they are gathering data with a reliable and valid instrument, and yet there also is room to improve the tool in the future. If you are interested in learning more about this study, please click here.