Wisconsin county program named a top government innovator

By Charles Taylor
SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A Milwaukee County, Wis. program that provides services to youth with serious emotional, behavioral or mental health needs — and to their families — is the only county program to win a 2009 Innovations in American Government Award.

Wraparound Milwaukee received the Annie E. Casey Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform from the Ash Institute of Democratic Governance at Harvard University. The program was featured in a May 4, 2009 County News story. Bruce Kamradt, director of Children’s Mental Health Services for Milwaukee County, accepted the award at a Sept. 14 ceremony in Washington, D.C.

“It works, and it can work with different populations of kids,” he said of the program.

The winners were chosen from a pool of nearly 700 applicants and underwent several rounds of review and onsite evaluation. The national selection committee was chaired by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Maryland lieutenant governor. The five other winners were state and city programs.

Stephen Goldsmith, director of the Innovations in American Government program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said, “In honoring Wraparound, we hope other states will learn from the program’s innovation and adopt similar practices to ensure improved care of at-risk youth.”

At the ceremony, Townsend encouraged the winners to tell their stories. “Don’t hide your light under a bushel,” she said, “share it; show it; shout it….” The award includes a grant to help winners demonstrate their programs’ replicability.

Kamradt said he has already been asked to make presentations about the program in Scotland, Ireland and England, and that officials from Australia and New Zealand have also expressed interest in it.

The winners were chosen based on their program’s novelty, significance, effectiveness and transferability, according to Harvard officials.

For more information about Wraparound Milwaukee, contact Kamradt at 414/257-7611 or Bruce.Kamradt@milcnty.com, or visit www.milwaukeecounty.org/WraparoundMilwaukee7851.htm.

The application process for the 2010 Innovations in American Government Awards will open in January 2010. More information on the Innovations in American Government Awards program is available at http://innovationsaward.harvard.edu/Awards_Cycle.cfm.