Application of Research in Human Services - Essay Example

Human Services Discuss Human Services and Explain Why it is an Essential Field of Study As a discipline, human service is a broad field covering all forms and manners of social technologies. An applied social science discipline tries to develop social innovations that aim at improving the quality of life of individuals. Human services take a whole-person approach as it works at all levels of society; targeting everyone (Neukrug, 1994). In addition, human services promote the autonomy of individuals as this makes the human service systems better and more efficient.

The ultimate goal of human services is instigating positive change in society. In the United States, the origin of human services is traceable back to the charitable activities that groups undertook during the colonial period. These groups include the religious and civic organizations that existed during this time. Nevertheless, human services were not considered as a serious academic discipline until 1960s. Academicians during this era saw the significance of human services as an ideology that would revolutionize human service delivery and professionalism (Sundel et al., 1999). As stated earlier, the main objective of human service as a academic discipline is increasing the efficiency of service delivery.

Other objectives of human service include the re-education and sharpening of professions involved in the traditional service delivery. These traditional helping professional, through human service, adopt a humanistic approach in service delivery; implementing humanistic psychology during service delivery. Furthermore, human service also improves the accountability of these professionals to the communities they are supposed to serve (Neukrug, 1994). Service delivery professionals are able to take responsibility in the organizations they serve and implement appropriate systems that take into consideration the population they are serving.

Finally, human service advocates that service delivery professionals to be involved in social change that aims to improve society as a whole. Nursing, education, law, medicine, social work and other traditional academic programs were resistant in adopting the human service approach during service delivery. The reason they were resistant stemmed from the fact that this new ideology challenged the professional status of these academic programs (Sundel et al., 1999). However, this was not the case because human services aimed at encouraging these traditional professions in promoting social change.

Describe the Specific Applications of Research in Human ServicesInstitutions such as the North Organization for Human Services (NOHS) delve into human service research with several aims:Strengthening and improving the quality of human quality service of organizationsBridging the gap that exists between an organization’s human service objectives and the resources available.Assisting individuals and groups improve the overall wellbeing of society through available information.Human service programs branch into homeless youths, youth development programs, community collaborations among other related programs.

These programs all aim to nurture society into a healthy state; better than its previous versions (Neukrug, 1994). Several professions such as psychology, social workers and sociologists are under the human services umbrella. These professions, by their definition, are tasked with understanding and helping individuals to become better versions of them. They are directly involved in programs such as drug and alcohol treatment, child and family services, mental health, intellectual and development disabilities and other similar programs (Sarri & Hasenfeld, 1978).

Other than society-focused programs, human service research also has programs that guide organizations in developing services that are holistic in nature; that is, the services cater for children, adults and families. Sarri and Hasenfeld further state that human service research is a vital academic research field as it finds innovative ways to engage individuals in shaping societal policies, practices and priorities (1978). Through the direct engagement of individuals, society as a whole is able to adapt to administrative, fiscal and political realities.

ReferencesNeukrug, E. (1994). Theory, practice, and trends in human services. Pacific Grove, Calif.: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co. Sarri, R., & Hasenfeld, Y. (1978). The Management of human services. New York: Columbia University Press. Sundel, M., Sundel, S., & Sundel, S. (1999). Behavior change in the human services. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.