Human services

Human services is for people who need interdisciplinary field of study with the objective of meeting human needs through an applied knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations The process involves the study of social technologies (practice methods, models, and theories), service technologies (programs, organizations, and systems), and scientific innovations designed to ameliorate problems and enhance the quality of life of individuals, families and communities to improve the delivery of service with better coordination, accessibility and accountability. The mission of human services is to promote a practice that involves simultaneously working at all levels of society (whole-person approach) in the process of promoting the autonomy of individuals or groups, making informal or formal human services systems more efficient and effective, and advocating for positive social change within society.

Human services practitioners strive to advance the autonomy of service users through civic engagement, education, health promotion and social change at all levels of society. Practitioners also engage in advocating so human systems remain accessible, integrated, efficient and effective.

Human services academic programs can be easily accessible in colleges and universities, which award degrees at the associate, baccalaureate, and graduate levels. Human services programs are in countries all around the world.

Human services has its roots all of the in charitable activities of religious and civic organizations that date back to the Colonial period. However, the academic discipline of human services did not start until the 1960s. At that time, a group of college academics started the new human services movement and began to promote the adoption of a new ideology about human service delivery and professionalism among traditional helping disciplines. The movement's major goal was to make service delivery more efficient, effective, and humane. The other goals dealt with the reeducation of traditional helping professionals to have a greater appreciation of the individual as a whole person (humanistic psychology) and to be accountable to the communities they serve (postmodernism). Furthermore, professionals would learn to take responsibility at all levels of government, use systems approaches to consider human problems, and be involved in progressive social change.

Traditional academic programs such as education, nursing, social work, law and medicine were resistant to the new human services movement's ideology because it appeared to challenge their professional status. Changing the traditional concept of professionalism involved rethinking consumer control and the distribution of power. The new movement also called on human service professionals to work for social change. It was proposed that reducing monopolistic control on professionals could result in democratization of knowledge, thus leading to said professionals counteracting dominant establishments and advocating on behalf of their clients and communities. The movement also hoped that human service delivery systems would become integrated, comprehensive, and more accessible, which would make them more humane for service users. Ultimately, the resistance from traditional helping professions served as the impetus for a group of educators in higher education to start the new academic discipline of human services.

Some maintain that the human services discipline has a concrete identity as a profession that supplements and complements other traditional professions. Yet other professionals and scholars have not agreed upon an authoritative definition for human services.

Chenault and Burnford argued that human services programs must inform and train students at the graduate or postgraduate level if human services hoped to be considered a professional discipline. A progressive graduate human services program was established by Audrey Cohen (1931–1996), who was considered an innovative educator for her time. The Audrey Cohen College of Human Services, now called the Metropolitan College of New York, offered one of the first graduate programs in 1974. In the same time period, Springfield College in Massachusetts became a major force in preserving human services as an academic discipline. Currently, Springfield College is one of the oldest and largest human services program in the United States.

Manpower studies in the 1960s and 70s had shown that there would be a shortage of helping professionals in an array of service delivery areas. In turn, some educators proposed that the training of nonprofessionals (e.g., mental health technicians) could bridge this looming personnel shortage. One of the earliest educational initiatives to develop undergraduate curricula was undertaken by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), which was funded by the National Institute on Health. Professionals of the SREB Undergraduate Social Welfare Manpower Project helped colleges develop new social welfare programs, which later became known as human services. Some believed community college human services programs were the most expedient way to train paraprofessionals for direct service jobs in areas such as mental health. Currently, a large percentage of human services programs are run at the community college level.