TPC Journal V7, Issue 3 - FULL ISSUE

256 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 3 Consistency is necessary for fair and uniform needs assessments. Proper assessment is a cooperative process, requiring diligent coordination between counselors, case managers, and court officers. Regular meetings with stakeholders will promote assessment service needs, availability of services and costs, location and acquisition of funding, and specification of outcomes and outcome measurements (Walsh & Holt, 1999). With training and assessment addressed, counselors can direct more energy to advocacy needs. Advocacy Counselors have a duty to educate and advocate for the communities with which they interact and the American Counseling Association (2003) is fully in support of this ideal. On the surface, this may appear to be in opposition to the demands of working in the arena of specialty courts, but counselors are in an ideal situation to promote better outcomes for clients through advocacy efforts (Grob, 1995; Kupers, 2015). By providing services to participants and advocating for programs, counselors working with specialty courts not only actively serve client needs, but also provide ethical and pragmatic examples of conduct for those considering service to these populations. Linhorst et al. (2009) also noted that counselor participation contributes to the development of best practices for the courts. Conclusion Specialty courts represent a new frontier for counselors. As mental health experts, counselors are the key to successful outcomes for participants (Linhorst et al., 2009). The need for cooperation and coordination by stakeholders with opposing goals and objectives and the increased scrutiny of treatment are challenges that await counselors with the courage to work with participant populations within specialty courts. The rewards of seeing change and improvement in participants’ lives far outweigh the concerns of operating in these still-developing areas. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References American Counseling Association. (2003). Advocacy competencies . Alexandria, VA: Author. Baldwin, J. M. (2016). Investigating the programmatic attack: A national survey of veterans treatment courts. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology , 105 , 705–751. Boldt, R. C. (2014). Problem-solving courts and pragmatism. Maryland Law Review , 73 , 1120–1172. Centre for Justice & Reconciliation. (2017). Lesson 1: What is restorative justice? Retrieved from http://restorative justice.org/restorative-justice/about-restorative-justice/tutorial-intro-to-restorative-justice/lesson-1-what-is- restorative-justice/#sthash.yTdYUX7Y.dpbs . Clark, S., McGuire, J., & Blue-Howells, J. (2014). What can family courts learn from veterans treatment courts? Family Court Review , 52 , 417–424. doi:10.1111/fcre.12101 Eisen, S. V., Schultz, M. R., Vogt, D., Glickman, M. E., Elwy, A. R., Drainoni, M., . . . Martin, J. (2012). Mental and physical health status and alcohol and drug use following return from deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. American Journal of Public Health , 102 (S1), S66–S73. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300609