Recently our Community Mental Health Team began a new program called RapAround. It is designed to help prevent Children from being taken and place into Out Of Home Placement Centers.

They assign a case worker to each family. Then the family and the case worker meets and they discuss picking support people to help them work as a team.

Once a week the case worker meets with the team and everyone works on rules and consequences that will help work out the problems the family are facing with the teen in risk.

Both the child and the parents pick a person they feel comfortable with to work as their support person. If the child does not have someone they feel comfortable knowing the inside issues of his or her family unit. A mentor is then placed into the position and often picked by the court.

The mentor can take the child on short outings a few times a week to give the parents stress free time. They can also call at any time to check on how things are going. Most mentors are known to help with class work and any other issues the child maybe having at school and out of the home environment.

Each meeting takes place either in the home or at the Mental Health Center. The case worker is there as a mediator. She or He will help discuss the issues of the past week. They also help the family to find ways of working the issues out without anger and arguments.

Often the worker also works with the school to find ways to help the child improve grades and attendance. They may also work along side the probation officer if the child is in court for any other issues.

It is a good program and has a lot of room to expand and provide greater services to families of these children.

There are several families at a time that are involved with RapAround. As each family completes the tasks and graduate. It opens the door for the team to work with another needy family.

I have personally been involved in this program as a support person for two families. I know the program has a lot of great potential.

However both the child and the family members have to want this program to work for it to be successful. They have to participate. That is the whole key. If the child does not want it to work or the parent is hard to work with. It sets up the program to fail from day one.

Now as part of the program everyone is asked to sign a contract. This saves a lot of wasted time on families who just do not want to participate.
It helps keep slots open for families who really need the help.

It is a lot of work. There are meetings once a week and a lot of family projects that take place. The program is in depth about six months in length for the most troubled families.

As each family graduates. A new family becomes involved. This is just one more way the community is trying to preserve families.