What is Human Services? Carmen M. Riggs BSHS 302 November 19, 2012 Linda Cook, MSSW, LCSW What is Human Services? Human Services were created to look at and help with the challenges that many individuals, children, and families face. Through the services offered by human service agencies, those who cannot meet their needs on their own possibly can receive the help they need. This can include food assistance, cash assistance, medical/mental health assistance, childcare assistance, and many other types of assistance. Human Service agencies/workers strive to provide advocacy and referrals to help people meet their basic needs and to help guide them on the road to self-sufficiency. Human Services cover a broad range of specialties/practices, so in this essay we will discuss the goal and history of Human Services, the nature of the generalist practice, common intervention strategies, and ethical considerations. The Goal of Human Services Human Services is a way for individuals and families to be assisted in meeting their basic physical and emotional needs. Various obstacles can keep some from meeting their needs on their own. These obstacles can include lack of education, lack of support, and mental illness to name a few. Some of these obstacles are self-inflicted, though often the reasons people have trouble meeting their basic needs are because of circumstances beyond their control (Martin, 2011). Human service/social service agencies are accessed by these individuals when they bump into these challenges and do not know how to fix them. It is the Human Service worker/advocate who listens, gives information and guides the individuals who need the help to the services they may qualify for. History of Human Services Human Services has changed over their years and continues to change every day. What we currently think of Human Services is a relatively new concept in history. In America, Human Services has evolved from the Poor Laws of England, where law enforcement rounded up beggars and vagrants, who were judged as either the worthy poor or the unworthy poor. “Legislative guidelines typically stipulated that only pregnant women, individuals who were extremely ill and unable to work, or any person over the age of 60 were considered justifiably poor, and thus they were treated more leniently, including given governmental authorization to beg (typically in the form of a letter of authorization), or they were given other forms of sustenance. If a man or a woman was found to be able-bodied and unemployed, he or she was determined to be vagrant, punishable by whippings, naked parading through the streets, being returned to the town of their birth, or incarceration. Repeat offenders were often subject to having an ear cut off or even death” (Martin, 2011). The Elizabethan Poor Laws were more sympathetic incarnations of these laws that later turned into the foundation for American social welfare policy. More recently, some of these early concepts have been molded and improved to bring us the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) brought to us by the Clinton administration. This act replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children ( AFDC) with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). TANF has stricter time limits for families on the program, required work requirements (schooling or active job search) and other requirements to hold the people accountable for their actions. Presently, Human Services has such a large variety of organizations ranging from community and faith- organizations to county and state social service agencies that can all provide services to individual and family needs. These needs are food, shelter, temporary cash assistance, medical care, child welfare (such as foster care and Child Protective Services), chemical dependency, and counseling, to name a few. The Nature of the Generalist Practice Human Services professionals are considered generalists due to the wide range of skills that they use in diverse populations (Martin, 2011). To be a successful Human Service professional, the desirable skills are empathy, compassion, listening skills, confidentiality, patience, and observational skills. Because the Human Services field is broad, it is common for Human Services professionals to have areas of specialization. With these specializations, a Human Services professional must also be competent in working in a broad range of areas using many forms of intervention to tackle a broad range of issues affecting individuals (Martin, 2011). Intervention Strategies It is the goal of any Human Services professional to help teach intervention strategies that help empower individuals and families to being more self-sufficient, which in turn results in personal growth. Patience, active listening, and observational skills are important processes of assessment and intervention. These strategies can include tools such as psychological testing, clinical diagnoses, and family genograms to help recognize an individual’s behaviors while also evaluating level of function and mental status. Ethical Considerations There is a code of ethics and principles that Human Services follow. These ethics mandate how Human Services professionals should conduct themselves in the professional setting. The National Association of Social Workers writes in the Journal of Human Services that a Human Services professional’s responsibilities are to clients, community and society, colleagues, to the profession, to employers, and to us as Human Service professionals ("Ethical Standards for Human Service Professionals," 2010). It is important for all Human Services professionals to follow the code of ethics in all aspects of life, because as Human Services professionals, we are held at a higher standard; even in our personal lives. In conclusion, it is important that the code of ethics for Human Service professionals be followed closely; always remembering that the clients seeking service may have bigger problems than originally thought that is why healthy boundaries, active listening, and gaining trust is important. Using the code of ethics dictates the behaviors of Human Service professionals and helps the workers to provide all the best services for people who need them.

References Ethical Standards for Human Service Professionals. (2010). Journal of Human Services, 30(1), , 81-89. Martin, M. E. (2011). Indroduction to Human Services: Through the Eeys of Practice Settings (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.