The Human Services Worker
Human Services Worker is a generic term for people who hold professional and paraprofessional jobs in such divers settings as group homes and hallway houses; correctional, mental retardation, and community mental health centers; family, child, and youth service agencies, and programs concerned with alcoholism, drug abuse, family violence, and aging (Harris, Maloney, and Rother, pg. 205). Human services have helped lots of people to manage their life or get them back on their feet. Human services are broad, and contain a lot of job titles. One thing that human service workers all have in common is their desire to help others. The primary purpose of human service worker is to assist individual and communities to function as effectively as possible in the major domains of living (NOHS, 2012). They are people who have the patience, understanding, and caring in their dealings with others is highly valued by employers (NOSH, 2012). Case worker refers to an individual who possesses a degree in social work from a school or program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (NASW, 2010). Case worker, is a primary method of social work that is concerned with the change and improvement of helping people towards a satisfying human relation.
Case worker are employed by large number of organizations. In America, most government agencies that provide social services to children in poor or troubled families have a staff of caseworkers, each of whom is assigned a proportion of the cases under review at any given time (Enwikipedia, 2012). Case worker does a lot each day depending on where the work and their level of expertise. The kind of services that they provide varies widely. They can work with people who are without shelter or home, ill, or with family that has issues. Case worker provides resources to the people who are in need of them. An example would be like, providing families a parenting class that can help fix their family difficulties. They set up programs that will provide some sort of help. There are many case workers who give out counseling help. Case worker (social work profession) has increasingly highlighted the importance of racial diversity and cultural competency training in social work education and practice (Freeman, 2010). There are two types of case worker (social worker): direct-service social worker who help people solve and cope with problems in their everyday lives, and clinical social workers, who diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional issues (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012).
Direct-service case workers usually help address everyday problems from finding work or applying for government aid. Direct-case social workers typically do the following (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012):
Identify people who need help
Assess clients’ needs, situations, strengths, and support networks to determine their goals
Develop plans to improve their clients’ well-being
Help clients adjust to changes and challenges in their lives, such as illness, divorce, or unemployment
Research and refer clients to community resources, such as food stamps, child care, and healthcare
Help clients work with government agencies to apply for and receive benefits such as Medicare
Respond to crisis situations, such as natural disasters or child abuse
Advocate for and help clients get resources that would improve their well-being
Follow up with clients to ensure that their situations have improved
Evaluate services provided to ensure that they are effective
Direct-service workers and clinical case workers both help out people to improve their living situation in some ways, but the services they provide can be different as well. Clinical case workers generally help address mental health problems. Clinical case workers typically do the following (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012):
Diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression
Provide individual, group, family, and couples therapy
Assess clients’ histories, backgrounds, and situations to understand their needs, as well as their strengths and weaknesses
Develop a treatment plan with the client, doctors, and other healthcare professionals
Encourage clients to discuss their emotions and experiences to develop a better understanding of themselves and their relationships
Help clients adjust to changes in their life, such as a divorce or being laid-off
Work with clients to develop strategies to change behavior or cope with difficult situations
Refer clients to other resources or services, such as support groups or other mental health professionals
Evaluate their clients’ progress and, if necessary, adjust the treatment plan
They both can be employed in a variety of settings like in the government agencies, nonprofit agencies, school or the hospitals. Case workers are employed to help people direct the social services that are available to them. They both work as an encouraging help for people to become emotionally and financially stable so they can support themselves. In order to build a good relationship with their client, there are specific needs that clients would need to know.
The principles of building a good relationship with a client are crucial. According to Diane Depanfilis and Marsha K. Salus (2003):
The client has a need to be treated as a unique individual rather than a case, a type, or a category. Clients need to express both negative and positive feelings.
Clients need sympathetic understanding of and response to the feelings expressed. There is a delicate balance between being personally and emotionally involved with a client and maintaining a degree of professional objectivity.
Clients need to be accepted as people of worth and inherent dignity regardless of personal problems and past failures.
Clients have a need to be neither condemned nor judged for the difficulties in which they find themselves.
Clients have a need to make their own choices and decisions.
Clients have a need to keep personal information as secret as possible.
It is important to have this kind of relations with their client as their case worker. Before we can fully understand what case worker’s do, we need to know the history of case worker (social worker) in the United States and its roots in the struggle of society to deal with problems that are associated with them.
Case worker developed in the United States reflected on an ongoing mixture of ideas derived from different kind of cultures throughout history. Just as social workers appreciate the necessity of viewing individuals within context- be they social, cultural, or physical- so social work as a practice and a profession must be viewed within its sociohistorical context (Pozzuto & Arnd-Caddigan, 2008). Even before the American Revolution, services to the poor, to children, and to the mentally ill had been established in North America, many used the poor laws that were established in England to define who should receive services and the content of those services (SagePub.com, 2012). By the early 19th century, it was said that the states had begun providing relief through towns and counties. Their efforts were often poor and were self-help organizations that began to add-on to their efforts. There were lots of social welfare policies and programs that were taken for granted that occur within United States history. Since the first social work class was offered in the summer of 1898 at Columbia University, social workers have led the way developing private and charitable organizations to serve people in need (NAWS, 2012). Social workers continue to address the needs of society and bring our nation’s social problems to the public’s attention. The case worker profession devised standards and training and advocates social research and scientific methods. Their profession lead to a more consistent and focused on care for individual who are in need and a desire for social change. Our states take in responsibilities for distributing relief from towns and counties. Many of the benefits were taken for granted came about because social worker working with families and institutions spoke out against abuse and neglect (NASW, 2012):
The civil rights of all people regardless of gender, race, faith, or sexual orientation are protected.
Workers enjoy unemployment insurance, disability pay, worker’s compensation and Social Security.
People with mental illness and developmental disabilities are now afforded humane treatment.
Medicaid and Medicare give poor, disabled and elderly people access to health care.
Society seeks to prevent child abuse and neglect.
Treatment for mental illness and substance abuse is gradually losing its stigma
Case worker falls under the human services that are broadly define in maintaining to improve the quality of life services to the populations has standards that must be followed or met through the National Organization for Human Service Education (NOHSE).
The National Organization for Human Service Education (NOHSE) developed the Ethical Standards of Human Services Professionals. Case worker functions in many ways, carries many roles and responsibilities. Case workers have a long tradition with the concern of ethical dilemmas. There are several methods for dealing with ethical dilemmas. One of the most common and accepted method is the development and implementation of a professional code of ethics. The development of a code of ethics for the purpose of ethical dilemmas is involved in the development and recognition of a profession by society. Professional ethics are concerned with the correct course of professional actions when dealing with ethical dilemmas. Human Services ethics are designed to help case workers decide whether two or more challenging goals are the correct one for the given situational background. Case worker makes decisions that may affect only a few but in some case their decisions may also affect a crowd of people. There is no sure way of resolving ethical dilemmas but by knowing and honoring the ethical standards will help the case worker in making decisions that will be of the greatest benefit for the client. The ethical standards of the human services professional are a set of fifty-four guidelines developed by NOSHE to outline the human service professional responsibility to clients (NOSHE, 2012). There are lots of ethical issues and dilemmas that case worker will face, such as confidentiality.
Case worker must have a capacity to handle any situation. As a case worker, they need to make sure that their clients are aware of their rights and responsibilities, such as confidentiality. By maintaining confidentiality of information is very important. The rights and responsibilities are often laid down in legislation, codes of practices and policy documents. Case worker should always think carefully before talking to their colleagues and clients, and always ask whether a person really needs to know about your client. The confidentiality must be kept within certain borderlines, and can be broken when other service user’s rights come into conflict. Case worker should respect their client’s right to keep any information private. There may be certain information that may need to be passed to a senior member of the staff when there is someone who might be in danger. Clients can expect that you do not discuss their details with anyone else without their permission. Trust is very important.
Case worker does provide a variety of resources and help to the people who need it. Human service profession is one that promotes improved service delivery systems by addressing not only the quality of direct services, but by also seeking to improve accessibility, accountability, and coordination among professionals and agencies in service delivery (Harris, Maloney, & Rother, pg. 205). Case worker is here to assist people towards a better life as possible. They are there to help people overcome problems and make their lives better. They might work with people who are homeless, sick, or having family problems. They should be prepared to challenge attempts to undermine the profession’s traditional values through case work that will withstand commitment to vulnerable and worried people. They can work within government agencies, non-profit agencies, to school and to the hospitals. They must attempt to anticipate the emergence of ethical issues that, while perhaps unimaginable today, are likely to arise in the future as a function of societal and other changes. Maybe perhaps as a result of technological developments that may have ethical implications.
