Document Type
Poster
Date
4-10-2025
Keywords
Veterans, Treatment courts, Syracuse model, VA benefits, Justice involved veterans
Campus Community
College of Law
Language
English
Funder(s)
New York Health Foundation
Disciplines
Military and Veterans Studies
Description/Abstract
The Betty and Michael D. Wohl Veterans Legal Clinic (VLC) at the Syracuse University College of Law is partnered with the New York Health Foundation (NYHF) to develop and implement an approach for expanding the services available to Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) participants across New York. VTCs offer an alternative to criminal court for many low-level offenses. The participants complete an intensive 18-month program of counseling, support groups, and recovery before graduating. A significant number of participants earned VA benefits through their service but are not receiving those benefits. Advocating for these veterans benefits reinforces that their service was valuable, something they may not be feeling as they are navigating the court system. By connecting the participants with student attorneys working for the VLC, more New York veterans can receive the benefits and support they earned through military service. Engagement with the VLC also opens the door to additional services these veterans may need, including housing, education, job training, and opportunities to engage more deeply in the community. Through this partnership, the VLC and NYHF are making these connections happen and publishing a field manual (i.e., a playbook) for other organizations to adopt and use in their communities. This program will serve as a national model for how communities embrace participants of VTCs and will increase the probability that the participants become active and productive in their local communities. "The Syracuse Model" for Veterans Treatment Courts will serve as the best-practice model for organizations across the country embracing it.
Recommended Citation
Kubala, Elizabeth and Rielly, Bill, "Increasing Access to Valuable Services for Veterans Treatment Court Participants" (2025). Voices of Service Symposium. 16.
https://surface.syr.edu/vos/16
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
