Some people may be unfamiliar with human services as a profession. Human services, broadly defined, is a unique approach to problem solving that emphasizes collaboration, equity, and social justice (figure 1.1). Human services professionals rely on the the following areas to meet the needs of their clients:

• an interdisciplinary knowledge base that includes prevention, intervention, and remediation;
• a commitment to the delivery of essential services and working with other agencies to improve people’s overall quality of life.
• a focus on equity and social justice to optimize the potential of individuals and groups (Kincaid, 2009).

Figure 1.1. Human services is a field that emphasizes collaboration, equity, and helping others.

1.3.1 Broadly Defined

The broad definition of this discipline means that there are many jobs and careers that fit under the umbrella of human services. People who are motivated to help others find themselves together in this field even though they work in a wide range of settings including schools, medical offices and hospitals, private nonprofit agencies, and governmental services.

For example, people who work in human services perform functions that help people resolve life’s problems such as housing insecurity and homelessness, unemployment, food insecurity, addictions, custody, or the social and emotional sides of loss, tragedy and illness. They provide services helping people with adoptions, fostering children, parenting, mental health challenges, dealing with grief and loss, and other life transitions.

1.3.2 Unique Interdisciplinary Approach

Human services is grounded in the context of human development and human organizational behavior, or how people behave in groups. Human services requires a uniquely interdisciplinary approach, which means that multiple disciplines contribute to the profession.

This broad understanding comes from multiple fields, such as:

• human development and family sciences
• psychology
• sociology
• early childhood development and education
• public health
• nutrition
• communications
• criminal justice

While the professional in human services will have a specialized focus in one of these areas, they will also have enough broad-based knowledge and experience that they can draw on when needed.

1.3.3 Prevention, Intervention, and Remediation

Human services professionals’ primary work is that of helping people to solve their life problems at three different stages: preventing problems, intervening in problems, and remediating problems as shown in figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2. The Human Services service model focuses on preventing problems, intervening in problems, and remediating problems. As you learn more, consider which mode you might prefer most?

Prevention may involve education, public health, or policy planning. It also includes helping individuals prevent the recurrence of problems, by giving planning, budgeting, problem-solving or counseling support.

Professionals involved in intervention help people solve problems as they occur. Professionals may work at the policy level, designing and creating needed services,or they may work on an individual level, helping people access services and stabilize their lives.

Professionals in the area of remediation work with programs and policies that involve chronic problems such as addiction and criminal behavior. To help people rehabilitate themselves, human services workers use a strengths-based approach, which involves using the strengths of individuals, families, and communities to solve problems. We’ll discuss the strengths-based approach later in this chapter

The human services field includes professionals who specialize in each of these approaches as well as those who know how to use all three to find what individuals or families need. As you read this text, consider your career from the lens of prevention, intervention, and remediation. Where do you want to focus?

1.3.4 Collaboration, Knowledge, and Quality of Life

Collaboration is an essential part of human services and means that many agencies and services must work together to serve individuals, families, and groups best. Just like the image in figure 1.2, the human services professional must piece together a solution that serves the entire person. Professionals work to make delivery of services as smooth and complete as possible. Planning, communication, and being able to focus on others’ experiences, needs, and strengths, or being other-centered are important to delivering human services. There are times when a human service professional may need to step aside or refer a client to another service that can more fully support the client in their goals.

Figure 1.3. Collaboration amongst multidisciplinary agencies and individuals can feel disjointed, but it is important to work together toward the best quality of life for clients.

Being knowledgeable about other services, as well as being intentional about asking questions when one doesn’t know the answers, are highly valued skills in human services. The combination of collaboration, communication, and knowledge can lead to smoother service delivery, which in itself benefits others. All of these factors contribute to helping people use human services to achieve the best quality of life possible.

1.3.5 Equity and Social Justice

Human service professionals recognize the difference between social problems and personal troubles. Many issues that individuals and groups face stem from systemic social problems. In other words, these are problems that affect every part of society and thus require larger, structural changes.

Recognizing that individuals are facing problems that are societal in nature is key to helping people move forward in their lives. In addition, being focused on achieving equity, in which people in differing circumstances can access enough resources to have equal outcomes, is a pillar of the profession. Social problems, personal troubles, equity, and social justice will all be discussed more deeply later in this text.

1.3.6 Related Fields

Human services is a relatively new profession, having emerged from social welfare work in the 1950s and 1960s. Social work became a more prominent field in the same era and these two fields are intertwined. Both social work and human services focus on helping people both individually and in groups and emphasize social justice, the view that everyone deserves economic, political and social rights and opportunities that lead to equal outcomes.

One key distinction between human services and social work is that social work has a specific licensing and credentialing system and human services does not. Psychology, public health, education, and sociology are other related fields to human services. If you are considering human services as a career, you may also want to look into these other fields as well.

1.3.6.1 Social Work

While many jobs and careers are open to professionals in both fields, certain jobs can only be held by a licensed social worker (LSW). Licensing and education are discussed in Chapter 12. Professionals from both fields may work side by side in settings such as addiction treatment centers, incarceration programs, government agencies, and nonprofit agencies.

Both professions offer degrees at multiple levels: Associate, Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degrees. Social work, however, has an additional credentialing system. States and other jurisdictions license social workers in varying but similar ways. Most require completion of an accredited social work program at the undergraduate level, a bachelor of social work (BSW) and the graduate level, a masters of social work (MSW). Students who are interested in pursuing post-graduate degrees in social work often major in human services or sociology in their early college years.

1.3.6.2 Sociology

Where human services and social work are both applied fields with a focus on working with people, psychology and sociology are both more focused on theoretical understandings of social problems. Both are important foundations for the applied fields, but both dives more deeply into science, research, and theory than does human services. Psychology is focused on the study of the individual human mind and the way it functions and how it affects behavior. Sociology is focused more on the study of society’s structure, development and functioning.

The study of social problems, which is fundamental to human services, comes from the field of sociology. Sociologists research, teach, study and analyze organizational and societal behavior including social problems and how they affect people and society.

1.3.6.3 Psychology

Psychology is another field that has specific credentialing associated with higher level degrees. Students who wish to become a psychologist are typically thinking about earning a doctoral degree in which they might treat patients in a clinical setting, or conduct diagnosis and assessments in settings such as schools or prisons. Others will earn a doctorate so that they can perform scientific research related to the brain and behavior.

1.3.6.4 Counseling and Therapy

Students sometimes ask about becoming a counselor or a mental-health therapist. These are also roles that are certified and licensed by states and other jurisdictions. It is important to look at the certification requirements in the state in which you reside or plan to reside. Examples of these roles include Licensed Marriage Family Therapist (LMFT) and Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). These roles almost always require a master’s degree and sometimes a doctoral degree. An undergraduate degree in human services, psychology, social work or a related field prepares students for these advanced degrees.

1.3.6.5 Criminal Justice

Criminal justice is another broad field, which encompasses all aspects of the systems related to law enforcement including social processes such as laws, policies, and the practices of the court systems. Related jobs are police, lawyers, parole and probation officers, and correctional officers. There is an overlap with the helping professions that may be placed within the justice system such as social workers, counselors, behavioral aides, and addiction counselors. These helpers may be embedded within a jail or prison, but they also might specifically work with people who are in other parts of the justice system.

People who are interested in the remediation aspect of criminal justice work are often inspired by the grounding principles of human services. Students of human services who have also studied criminal justice may head toward careers in parole, probation, or other helping roles within a correctional facility.

1.3.6.6 Public Health, Education, and Early Childhood Education

Public health, education, and early childhood education are considered helping careers and are application based, just like human services. Public health is a very broad career that may range from research, to administration, to education all focused on the health of individuals and groups. Education (grades K-12) and early childhood education are teaching and administrative fields focused on the care and education of children from birth to age 18 years.

People with human services and with public health degrees might end up working side by side with one another in organizations that are focused on the health of people, but there will likely be more specialized jobs in that same organization that require a public health degree. There has been a great deal of focus on public health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. If the field of public health is one you are considering, you can watch the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) webinar, “Introduction to Public Health” in the Foundations for the Future section.

Students who want to work with children of varying ages may be interested in the education or early childhood education fields. There is certainly an overlap with the human services field because there are many families with children who seek help from human services professionals. A primary difference between teaching children and serving families with children is that a teacher is responsible for designing and implementing curriculum for a group of children, and typically spends eight hours per day with those students. The human services professional is more likely to work with children with their parents present and for shorter periods of time.

For example, someone with a human services degree might be a Family Support Specialist for Head Start or other early childhood education program. Teachers in public schools must be certified by the states that they live in; states vary whether this is completed at the bachelor’s or the master’s degree level. This applies to K-12 teaching consistently and in some states to early childhood teaching.

1.3.9 Degrees and Careers

An undergraduate degree helps prepare you for an advanced degree and your career. Sometimes the degree is the same as your ultimate profession, and other times it is a related field to the higher-level degree that you will earn. An associate’s degree in human services can lead to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in multiple fields including human services, social work, counseling, public health, psychology, or sociology. More discussion of degrees, licenses and careers will appear in Chapter 10.

As you move through your education and career, it is possible to try out different settings and roles. You may work on a focused project, such as these Alaskan human services workers (figure 1.4), at a large bureaucratic setting such as the Department of Human Services, or at a small agency that works with a specific population such as domestic violence victims and survivors.

Figure 1.5. A degree in human services can prepare you for a variety of advanced degrees and careers.

1.3.10 References

Kincaid, S. O. (2009). Defining human services: A discourse analysis. Human Services Education: A Journal of the National Organization for Human Services, 29(1), 14–24. https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/assets/Journal/2009.pdf

National Organization for Human Services. (n.d.). What is human services? Retrieved August 14, 2022, from https://www.nationalhumanservices.org/what-is-human-services?