TPC Journal V7, Issue 3 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 3 253 Clinical Integration With Specialty Courts Specialty courts are challenging for all stakeholders. Judges must transition from performing as adjudicators of justice to facilitators of treatment, and the clinician serves both the court and the program participants by providing treatment services. Counselors educate and advocate for participants and are able to frame program objectives into long-term treatment outcomes and participant prognoses for judges and court officers (Kupers, 2015). The mental health counselor, as a therapeutic service provider, becomes a de facto expert who the court relies on to assist in the development and implementation of treatment goals (Hughes & Peak, 2012). Specialty courts are full of legal terminology, and counselors working with the court can assist in conveying meaning clearly to program participants. A better-informed client will be more able to give informed consent and have more buy-in to the process. Facilitating education for participants increases the likelihood of successful completion of the program, which in turn translates to an improved quality of life and reduction in re-arrest rates (Haley, 2016). Participants in specialty courts will bring many issues to treatment. Counselors may provide assessments for the presence of mental health disorders, substance use, and social service needs, and they may be called upon to facilitate other assessments on an as-needed basis. Jurisdiction for participants is an area with a large amount of variety from program to program. For individuals that may be eligible for different programs, placing their case under the jurisdiction of one specialty court over another becomes a question of resources. For example, some mental health courts are able to address the substance use issues of participants, while others are not (Fisler, 2015). Specialty courts operate under the model of managed care, in which the treatment modalities are brief and evidence-based, such as with cognitive behavioral therapy (Kupers, 2015). The Council of State Governments outlined best practices for the creation of mental health courts (Thompson, Osher, & Tomasini-Joshi, 2007), which included behavioral modification techniques and operant conditioning as a key educational element, and included instruction on proper use of negative and positive reinforcement techniques (Russell, 2015). Judges and court officers are able to use the Council of State Governments’ model to structure their courts within the limitations of local resources and needs. Awareness of these needs and limitations allows the clinician to be more effective in influencing outcomes and program success for participants of specialty courts, of which three types are included in this discussion: drug courts, veterans treatment courts, and mental health courts. Drug Courts In 1989, a judge in Miami, Florida, started ordering drug users that came before the court into treatment in lieu of jail. Out of this was born the drug court, which has now become the model for specialty courts. The Miami court started as a response to the criminogenic life-cycle experienced by low-level offenders appearing before the court: substance use → crime → jail → release, then repeat (Fulkerson, 2009). The effect of the new paradigm on the cycle became: substance use → crime → treatment → support and supervision, leading to reduced recidivism (Haley, 2016). Since that time, drug courts have quickly spread across the nation. By 2001, there were more than 700 drug courts in the United States (Harrison & Scarpitti, 2002) and 1,600 as of 2010 (Haley, 2016). Drug courts use supervision and monitoring to ensure compliance to program requirements. Counselors serve as agents of the court, verifying adherence through substance abuse treatment services, drug testing, talk therapy, and encouraging abstinence as a condition to successful completion. Counselors working with drug court participants face a rather straightforward challenge,