Even in community health settings, let alone correctional institutions, treatment based on traditional models rarely addresses these issues to the degree that is needed. The overall environment in a prison or jail can be supportive for treatment or it can be non-responsive, setting up a series of structural, physical, and emotional barriers for the staff and clients of treatment programs. Institutional support is important from two levels, from administrators and from the overall institution, especially security staff. As advocates, counselors and service providers can help to ensure that women offenders are receiving the services needed to meet their unique situations. With many of the prison-based programs currently eliminating educational services, women who do not have high school or general equivalency diplomas, job training, or usable employment skills find themselves with little or no support when they are released to return to their families and communities.
Advocacy also includes empowering clients and improving their environment.
Many counselors and service providers, limited by time and other constraints, must find time to fully inform their clients about programs, services, policies, and expectations. Client advocacy requires that clients be guided through a maze of difficult choices and changes. Substance abuse treatment programs, jails, and prisons are usually not productive grounds for working with women who need to come to terms with their traumatic histories of abuse and lack of power. These programs are often rigid and authoritarian, making it difficult for women to reconnect to other people and discover their capacities for trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy. Treatment programs, counselors, and service providers are likely to face obstacles when advocating for the development of healthy environments in which counseling and treatment can address alcohol and drug-related issues, social problems, and lifestyle changes.