Summary: The Accountability Bridge Model For Counselors

In order to collect data a counselor must first decide on which symptom and functioning domain to assess on. Many measures are used to assess treatment outcome focus from one particular symptom or diagnosis such as depression and to which these measures only apply to one subset of clients. In response, many clinical settings that see a wide range of clients tend to measure a broader range of symptoms to provide a more complete assessment of each client. The researcher must then decide what source of dates should be used as well as whom perspective should be assessed. As a result of the complexities of measuring clinical outcomes clinicians have begun to integrate an increased number of brief, standardized, and validated measures that are provided at the beginning of treatment and throughout in intervals. The Accountability Bridge Model for Counselors

Researchers suggest that mental health counselors resist the use of intervention guidelines and treatment manuals due to lack of counselor-specific interventions and models and has created a gap between research and clinical practices (Randall/ Loesch). Additional reasons for this struggle are caused by the lack of research based trainings from individual programs, producing a lack confidence in

Randall L. Astramovich and J. Kelly Coker define counseling program evaluation along with Loesch (2001) in that it is the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery through careful and systematic examination of program component, methodologies, and outcomes. Astramovich, et al. feel that counseling program evaluations precedes accountability and believe counselor’s distancing from evaluation is inherited from the lack of practical program evaluation models that are available to them. Once again in agreeance with Loesch ( 2001) it was recognized that counselors experienced confusion between program evaluations and accountability that prevented many from participating in ongoing program evaluations