Building Resilient Families and Communities:
An Interview With Karl Dennis

Kimberly T. Kendziora

In this exclusive interview one of the pioneers of the wraparound approach to providing youth and family services shares his insights on how this system of unconditional care can help build resilient families and communities.

Karl Dennis, the executive director of Kaleidoscope, Inc., in Chicago, heads the first child welfare agency in the country to provide unconditional care for children. Mr. Dennis was one of the originators of intensive In-Home Family Preservation Services and Therapeutic Foster Care. The Kaleidoscope pediatric AIDS foster-care program, one of the nation’s first, has become a model for programs across the country. Since 1975, Mr. Dennis has also helped to orchestrate state initiatives to return children from out-of-state placements, providing services to thousands of children and their families.

A sought-after lecturer and consultant, Mr. Dennis has shared his knowledge of community-based care with individuals and agencies throughout the United States and also in China, Australia, Canada, Romania, Great Britain, and New Zealand. He served on the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government Executive Session to develop an alternative plan for child protection. Mr. Dennis is a member of the Friends of the Federation of Families and received their Making a Difference Award in 1995. Mr. Dennis was also the recipient of the Marion F. Langer Award from the American Orthopsychiatric Association for his national advocacy on behalf of children and families. Mr. Dennis has received one of only two Lifetime Achievement in Wraparound awards, which was given at a conference sponsored by a consortium of wraparound providers.

Mr. Dennis spoke with me about building resilient families and resilient communities from his Chicago office on March 29, 1999.

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No child lives alone. Child-centered services are not the direction we need to be heading in. We need to support the entire family. For example, the traditional juvenile justice model removes children from their homes and families, "treats" them, and then returns them to an environment unchanged since they left. Failure to take a child’s context into account leads to high recidivism rates. On the other hand, when the family as well as the targeted children receive services, the whole family can really get it together, and there’s a much better opportunity for success.

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I see several principals as crucial for wraparound. Wraparound is . . .

Community-driven. Collaboration across systems is necessary for truly effective service. No one system has all the answers.

Family-focused. We design services to serve the entire family. For example, a child from a poor family may be stealing to help support his family. If he’s caught and incarcerated, that does nothing to change the circumstances that led up to his stealing in the first place. A family-focused approach might work to help the family’s caregiver find a job, which might eliminate the need for the youth to steal. Another thing to note is that when a whole family is served following one child’s crisis, other children in that family can also benefit.

Creative. Here’s an example. One state asked me to help put a plan together for a particularly hard-to-serve youth. There was an autistic child who was institutionalized at the cost of about $100,000 per year. This child spent weekends with his father, who interacted wonderfully with him. I asked why the father couldn’t take care of the child all the time, and the response was that the father had to work. "How much does the father earn?" The answer was $40,000. My suggestion was to pay the father $40,000 per year to stay home and take care of his son. Even with state money spent on various outpatient treatments and services, the state would still save a substantial amount of money.

Unconditional. There must be no artificial time frames on how long we’re going to serve a family. We care for our own children for life, and we need to regard children in the community the same way.

Strengths-based. It is natural to approach people based on positives. If, when I first met my wife, she had said, "You’ve got big ears, funny eyes, and you walk a little strange," we never would have gotten together. That’s no way to build a relationship with another human being. To get people to respond well to you, focus on the positives, on the strengths. The deficit-focused approach that has dominated mental health may not be the most successful way to see someone.

Individualized. I have never met two people whose minds work just the same. Think about your own family, especially if you have more than one child. Can you reasonably care for these different children in exactly the same way? Can you always discipline them in exactly the same way?

Culturally competent. We have to look at people as different. We have to find out what each person’s approaches and values are. Most people think of ethnic differences here, but regional differences, or gender differences, are just as legitimate. Imagine an orthodox Jewish family who approached a service agency for help with family problems. Imagine that this agency insisted on the family coming in on a Saturday, their Sabbath. How would the family feel toward that agency?

Cost-effective. If it is not cost-effective, then there’s a problem. We’re not using bricks and mortar in our work. Human services don’t have large materials-related costs. Never pay for what you can get for free. This is not a motto of "cheapness," but rather one that reflects an emphasis on sustainability of care. I tell my staff, "It is your responsibility to work your way out of a job."

Outcome-driven. Accountability is crucial. We need to ask ourselves: Is what we’re doing making any sense? Is it working? You must always revisit your goals to make sure that what you’re trying to change is having an effect. If you’re working with a family with a child who has been truant from school for more than 30 days, and you decide you need to work on helping the father get a job, does that help the child stay in school?

Wraparound is an exciting approach to service. For wraparound to continue to grow, we need to expand the circle of advocates for the process.

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Things have changed in the world of services. On the up side, in the ’70s, folks thought that the staff at Kaleidoscope was crazy for "doing whatever it takes." Now, according to Barbara Burns and Sybil Goldman (1999), over 100,000 children and youth have been served using a wraparound process.

On the down side, there have been some policy changes that have affected services for the worse. When government changes, services change, and it can be a struggle to keep up. More than ever, I’m irritated by some of the changes I’ve seen.

One current case involves a woman who has been both a client and a trainer at Kaleidoscope. She is on public aid, and although she is on a heart transplant waiting list, she has been ordered to find a job. One of her sons has recently interviewed for a full college scholarship in architecture. Another son has seizure disorder and has been receiving SSI benefits. She is now fighting to have those benefits continued.

Another trend has been toward shorter-term service. At Kaleidoscope, the family served the longest was in care for about five years. The caregiver had some mental health problems and seven children. Kaleidoscope provided care to each of the children. Had Kaleidoscope not been there, the children would have been placed and almost certainly separated. The move toward shorter-term services represents a lack of a holistic approach.

Still another trend is that systems with paraprofessional providers are moving back toward an emphasis on more services provided by professionals. This process is influenced by Medicaid and other reimbursement policies. However, sometimes the best people do not have the paper qualifications to work with children. For example, a juvenile court judge I know who is an exceptional person could not be hired to work as a supervisor at Kaleidoscope because the judge did not have at least a master’s degree in social work.

With respect to permanency planning, I’ve been getting many calls from people around the country who are really concerned that their parental rights will be terminated. This is based on some federal legislation. There is a suggestion that in some states, as many as 13,000 parents will have their rights terminated. There are certainly humane issues involved, but also, I can’t see how the human services system can absorb this influx of cases. Other legislation has now passed such that cultural issues can no longer be considered in adoption cases. I would prefer to place children within their own cultural and ethnic backgrounds and, when this is not possible, train the adopting families in that cultural background. However, adoption services in most states are "front-end"; that is, once the adoption is finalized, it is difficult for families to then receive services.

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Burns, B. J., & Goldman, S. K. (Eds.) (1999). Promising practices in wraparound for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. Systems of care: Promising practices in children’s mental health, 1998 series, Volume IV. Washington, DC: Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, American Institutes for Research.

Lourie, I. S., & Katz-Leavy, J. (1991). New directions for mental health services for families and children. Families in Society, 72, 277–285.