5.1 Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives
Ethical Standards for Human Services Professionals
STANDARD 13: Human service professionals stay informed about current social issues as they affect clients and communities. If appropriate to the helping relationship, they share this information with clients, groups, and communities as part of their work. (NOHS, 2024).
This chapter provides foundational concepts related to the work of human services professionals, including social safety net programs, community organizations, social problems affecting clients and communities, and social support programs found in communities outside formal government structures. Social problems affect all of society, yet they affect social groups differently. The relationship of social problems to poverty and intersectionality is essential for human services professionals to understand. Knowing that problems are caused by social structures and not individuals helps us to be more compassionate.
This chapter provides an overview of conditions and characteristics that contribute to the environments where human services professionals work, the social problems they address, and the individuals and families they serve. This chapter will delve into the origin and evolution of community organizations that arose in response to their communities’ unaddressed needs. These grassroots organizations were born out of a desire to take action where government agencies and other support structures needed to catch up in reaching these communities. Additionally, it will explore the reasons behind the lack of trust that some of these communities had developed towards governmental agencies, often stemming from historical experiences of harm.
Learning Objectives
- Explain the concept of social safety net programs and their origins.
- Describe the components of social problems and the responsibilities we have in the human services field.
- Articulate the intersectionality between social identities and social problems.
- Compare and contrast social safety net programs and social insurance programs.
Key Terms
Key terms are important vocabulary for understanding the content of the chapters. They will be bolded and defined via an in-text glossary the first time that they appear in the chapter.
- Absolute approach: a way of defining poverty that designates a basic subsistence income level (the absolute version of a poverty line). Anyone who falls below that line is considered low income.
- Developmental approach: recognizes that social safety net programs are a necessary part of social and economic development
- Houselessness: (also known as housing insecurity) when a person lacks a reliable place to sleep and care for themselves
- Housing insecurity: conditions that might cause someone to become houseless or that are hazardous to the health of occupants of a residence
- Institutional view: the concept that social welfare programs are human rights and will always be a part of our society
- Intersectionality: a perspective that recognizes that individuals are impacted differently based on characteristics such as social class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, and age, and that it is important to look at the intersections of these identities.
- Poverty: the lack of material and social resources needed to live a healthy life
- Poverty gap: measures the difference between the poverty line and the actual income level of the average poor family
- Poverty line: minimum level of income needed to buy basic needs.
- Public issues: see definition for social problem
- Relative approach: a way of defining poverty that considers a person poor when their income is much lower than the typical income within a population
- Residual view: the concept that social welfare programs should exist only in times of particular need to avoid recipients becoming reliant on them
- Social insurance programs: a group of programs that take into account any contributions that the beneficiary has made to the program; these may be considered preventative
- Social issue: any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed (also known as public issues); systemic in nature
- Social safety net programs: a group of programs meant to alleviate the effects of poverty. Applicants must pass a means test in order to receive benefits.
- Sociological imagination: the ability to understand individual experience within the context of social structures.
Licenses and Attributions
“Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives” by Elizabeth B. Pearce is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Revised by Martha Ochoa-Leyva.
a professional field focused on helping people solve their problems.
the state of lacking material and social resources needed to live a healthy life
race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and other aspects of identity are experienced simultaneously and the meanings of each identity overlaps with and influences the others leading to overlapping inequalities
refers to the geographical location that a person was born and spent (at least) their early years in
a group of programs that take into account any contributions that the beneficiary has made to the program and may be considered preventative in nature.
