Wraparound Team Tips, Tricks and Tools

Change can be uncomfortable, but it’s also where growth happens. These quick, engaging team activities and strategies help Wraparound professionals build empathy, spark reflection and strengthen collaboration while supporting families through change. Use them to bring fresh energy and insight to your meetings!

Cross Your Arms Activity

To help families understand that change is difficult and experienced differently by each person, try this activity with your Wraparound team. Both challenging and fun, it’s a quick way for people to experience trying to change a habit, and to recognize that change is not automatic–it takes focus, intentionality and brain power. 

Instructions:

1. Ask everyone to cross their arms naturally (as if they were bored or waiting for something) whichever way is most comfortable for them and to leave their arms crossed throughout the next few minutes. This is great to do at the start of the family team meeting, so their arms are crossed while going through stating their positives for the week.
2. Then prompt everyone to cross their arms the other way (e.g., if right arm is crossed over left, then make left arm cross over right).
3. Watch the struggle, make it fun!
4. Ask them to hold the reversed arms position and start a conversation, enabling them to reflect on how that went for them. Potential prompts:
   1. How did it feel when you were asked to cross your arms the other way?
   2. Did it come naturally, or did you have to stop and think about it?
   3. What processes did you have to go through to make the change from habit arm folding to doing it differently?
   4. Were you comfortable with doing this once you realized it was hard?
   5. Were you comfortable trying something different in front of others?
   6. How does it feel holding your arms in the changed position?
   7. Do you think it would become easier if you were mindful of crossing your arms in the opposite direction for the next 48 hours?
   8. What kind of effort does it take to make change (cognitive, physical efforts, practice)?
   9. What kind of support is necessary to maintain the changes?

Strength-Based Reframe Challenge

If you notice the “little monster” of a fixed mindset appearing within a family—or within your team or self—try easing the fear through this “reframe challenge” activity!

Instructions: 

During a Wraparound family team meeting, pass around inexpensive Mardi gras beads to each person and challenge everyone to not use the word “Change” during the meeting. If a person catches another person saying “change,” they could offer a positive replacement word, and take their beads. The person with the most beads at the end of the meeting gets a prize. Encourage the family and team to use alternatives to shape the conversation (and their mindset) more positively. Potential word replacements:

Three Questions to Unstick the Wraparound Process

Even the strongest Wraparound teams can hit roadblocks. Progress can stall, families get fatigued, or the process lingers longer than it should. Here are three common places where teams get stuck–and guiding questions to spark some movement forward.

1. Families aren’t following through on action items.

This may be a signal that the true underlying needs haven’t been identified, or that the strategies don’t align with the family’s voice, values and culture. If the plan feels like “the team’s plan,” motivation will fade fast.

Ask: “Whose idea is this, and how does it reflect what matters most to the family?”

2. Progress stalls out, and the family is looking worn out.

Making changes is exhausting. Even when there’s success, it takes effort to sustain, and it’s easy to slip back into old patterns. Fatigue is a sign the team may need to pause, celebrate and find ways to shrink the work into smaller, more doable pieces.

Ask: “Have we celebrated the family’s success and acknowledged their strengths and growth? What do they need to ‘fill their cups?’”

3. No one feels ready to let Wraparound close.

When progress is tied too closely to the Wraparound team, families and systems may fear that success won’t last without formal supports. The work here is helping everyone see that the family has built skills and supports that don’t disappear when the team does.

Ask: “What evidence shows the family, and not the Wraparound team, has built the capacity to keep moving forward on their own?”

By pausing to ask these questions, teams can re-center the family’s voice, celebrate their strengths, and keep the Wraparound process moving toward lasting transformations.

Using Motivational Interviewing to Support Change

Change (even positive) can bring mixed feelings. Motivational Interviewing (MI) helps Wraparound professionals meet youth and families where they are with compassion, curiosity and confidence.

Rather than an interrogation, MI is a curious conversation built on empathy, reflective listening and open-ended questions. When people voice what matters to them, they’re more likely to make lasting change. MI isn’t about giving advice—it’s about asking thoughtful questions, listening deeply and helping people recognize their own strengths and motivation to move forward. Here are a few quick tips and the good kind of “tricks” for using MI to help people manage change:

Lean Into Ambivalence

Instead of pushing for change, invite youth and families to talk about both sides; the comfort of staying the same and the possibilities of something new. Ambivalence isn’t resistance; it’s a natural part of growth.

Evoke Change Talk

Use open-ended questions like, “What would be different for you if this change worked out?” or “When have you succeeded at something hard before?” Listen for “change talk” and reflect it back to strengthen motivation.

Affirm Strengths

Highlight what’s already working. A simple affirmation like, “You’ve shown a lot of persistence just by being here today,” can reinforce confidence and build momentum toward next steps.

Collaborate, Don’t Prescribe

MI is about partnership. Instead of offering a pre-set plan, MI’s use of open-ended questions and reflective statements guide families in shaping their own goals and determining what steps to take. Ownership and autonomy are what turns “resistance” into action.

Summarize and Celebrate

Wrap up conversations by reflecting the individual’s values, strengths and goals. These summaries help them hear their own motivation and remind them they already have what it takes to move forward.

Three Motivational Interview Questions to Spark Change Talk

Try these open-ended prompts to help youth and families explore their own motivation for change:

1. When you think about how you’d like things to be different, what stands out most?
2. If things stayed the same, what might worry you?
3. What feels most important to you about making this change?