Noble Intent Is Not Enough To Run Veterans Court Mentoring Programs: A Qualitative Study of Mentors’ Role Orientation and Responsibilities

Anne S Douds,Michael Posteraro,Eileen M Ahlin,Cassandra Atkin-Plunk

doi:10.21428/88de04a1.a897747a

Abstract

Mentoring is a key component of veterans treatment courts, a diversionary problem-solving court for justice-involved military veterans. Mentoring programs are unique to veteransâ courts; no other problem-solving courts systematically include them as critical components of their court programming. Despite their prominence in veterans courts, little is known about mentor program operations and court expectations for mentorsâ roles and responsibilities. This study examines mentorsâ roles and responsibilities as perceived by mentees, mentors, and veterans treatment court staff. Using in-depth interview data from respondents from each of these groups, supplemented by observational data from court hearings and pre-court meetings, we identify three types of mentoring styles: enforcers, sponsor/advocates, and friend. We find a lack of clarity in mentorsâ roles and responsibilities, which negatively impacted mentor-mentee relationships and mentorsâ relationships with the court. The three mentoring styles identified in this study offer veterans treatment courts a framework to shape and refine the mentor role and guide future efforts to provide standardized training for mentors.

Highlights

Building upon drug courts’ legacies and other problem-solving courts, veterans treatment courts (VTCs) provide an alternative to traditional criminal processing for justice-involved veterans
The three mentoring styles identified in this study offer veterans treatment courts a framework to shape and refine the mentor role and guide future efforts to provide standardized training for mentors
We begin by addressing the recurrent theme in the data, which was a sense amongst interviewees that the VTC mentor program was part and parcel to the VTC, an obligation to veterans

Summary

Introduction

Building upon drug courts’ legacies and other problem-solving courts, veterans treatment courts (VTCs) provide an alternative to traditional criminal processing for justice-involved veterans. The utility and applicability of mentoring have transcended time and discipline, and it has enjoyed a resurgence of attention in recent years in military and criminal justice contexts (Bauldry et al, 2009; Buck, 2018; Singh, Cale, & Armstrong, 2019). As part of this resurgence, the first sustained VTC began in Buffalo, New York in 2008 included a mandatory mentoring program designed to replicate, or at least reflect, military culture and the warrior ethos of “leave no one behind.”. Thereafter, Judge Russell concluded that “peer mentors would be an essential addition to the Treatment Court

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