Journal: Populations in Need (Essay Sample)

Module #2 Module Overview Populations in Need Human Services: A Field Without Boundaries Human services professionals cannot predict who their client will be on any one day. Depending on the organization the professionals work for, the client can be young, old, of any race and ethnicity, a member of any religion, of any sexual orientation, and facing any problem(s). The diversity of the clients and the challenge(s) of living makes human services an exciting field. It makes every day different and every client a different case. It requires human services professionals to have a variety of tools available to best meet the needs of the client. The National Organization for Human Services publishes Ethical Standards for Human Service Professionals. The standards address issues of confidentiality, working with diverse populations, and protecting the client’s right to self-determination. You will explore these standards more in your coursework for the human services degree. Just as the type of client and issue can differ, so too can the setting you work in as a human services professional. You could work in a hospital, doctor’s office, clinic, or home healthcare. You could work in an office, in a school, in a courtroom, or out of your car. You could work with communities, groups, individuals, and/or families. Just because you have never heard of human services professionals in a specific work setting, does not mean they are not there. Because job titles can vary, so can qualifications for a job. Also, do not forget about international opportunities. In fact, sometimes an international office can be located in the United States and in your area. Think outside the box! Once you have a field of interest, then you can begin to look at who offers services to that population. Services can include material distribution (e.g., clothing, household items, food), individual appointments (e.g., assessments, job placement, referrals to resources in the community), groups (e.g., parents of children with a disability, parenting classes, loss of spouse, divorce, addiction), advocacy (e.g., legal support, financial counseling), and community development (e.g., the development of new programs, assessing what services the community might need, lobbying). Your roles in these positions could include caregiver, case manager, teacher, trainer, coach, administrator, evaluator, advocate, and/or researcher. So now it is up to you! In this module, you will determine your area of interest for the final project. What agency will you pick? Reading & Resources Textbook: An Introduction to Human Services, Chapter 8 the client To get started, refer to the Chapter 8 glossary for a list of important concepts and key terms you will encounter in this module. In this chapter, students will learn more about services offered in the United States and abroad and trends in human services. Students will also explore how to understand client problems. Finally, students will read about how to gather more information on an agency (e.g., mission, vision, jobs they advertise). CHAPTER 8 The Client Meeting Client Needs After reading this chapter, you will be able to: The Whole Person LO 8-1 Define “the whole person.” LO 8-2 Apply the various ways to view a client to Mary’s case. Defining Problems LO 8-3 State how a “problems in living” approach expands an understanding of the client. Understanding Client Problems LO 8-4 Differentiate among the perspectives of client problems. LO 8-5 Illustrate lifespan problems. LO 8-6 Identify the origins of situational problems. LO 8-7 Draw the hierarchy of human needs. LO 8-8 List the components of a wellness model. LO 8-9 Support how a strengths model influences the development of client wellness LO 8-10 Summarize environmental influences on client problems LO 8-11 Articulate the feminist perspective on client problems. Clients as Individuals, Groups, and Populations LO 8-12 Define “client(s).” LO 8-13 Illustrate individuals, groups, and populations as clients. Getting Help LO 8-14 List the ways people get help. LO 8-15 Identify the barriers to seeking help. LO 8-16 Summarize the influence of client expectations on the helping process. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the recipient of human services. This individual may be called a client, a consumer, or a customer. Some consumer groups are concerned with the “client” label because of the stereotype it generates. The term consumer is used to emphasize the business nature of the delivery of services. The term customer connotes an individual who is actually purchasing the services and the need to be accountable to that individual. The term client describes the engagement of a professional in order to get advice and services. For this text, we have elected to use the term client since it is most often used in agency settings. Understanding the client is critical to any study of human services. Indeed, the client is the reason there are helpers and a helping process. In an effort to define the term client comprehensively, this chapter introduces several ways of thinking about the user of human services. One way of viewing the client is to study the meaning of the phrase “working with the whole person.” This guiding principle in human services focuses on the many components that define an individual and the areas of support a helper must consider when providing assistance. Describing the problems that clients experience is also an important consideration in defining the client. Problems can be considered in various ways. Several possible perspectives help us define the problems and difficulties that confront individuals. The lifespan perspective approaches problems that a person may experience during a lifetime and defines them in terms of life events or tasks that occur during a lifetime. The situational perspective describes problems that are mostly unpredictable and occur from accidents and other traumatic points in time. Meeting human needs, both physical and psychological, is another approach to explaining the problems that individuals encounter. A wellness model describes a strengths-based approach to understanding experiences. The feminist perspective provides insights into the role of power in the social context. Finally, culture may also be a critical factor in understanding the problems an individual or a group experiences and may present challenges to the human service professional to consider its influence. In this chapter, each of these perspectives is defined and its impact on the delivery of human services is described. The term client has many meanings. In some cases, clients are individuals; in others, the client may be a small group such as a family or even a larger population such as the residents of a geographic area. In this chapter, you will meet several individuals who are clients: Mary, who was hit by a car; two individuals who share first-person accounts as victims of random violence and nonphysical assault; Kisha, a homeless teenager; and a pregnant teenager who is involved in a gang. In the international arena, you will also read about countries in crisis. These accounts of clients will illustrate the concepts introduced in this chapter. Finally, in defining the client, we explore the experience of getting help from the client’s perspective. Sometimes it is difficult for human service professionals who themselves have never been clients to understand thoroughly what it is like to ask for and receive services. We discuss the many ways of getting help, the barriers to be surmounted, clients’ expectations, and their evaluation of services. THE WHOLE PERSON LO 8-1 LO 8-2 Clients enter the human service delivery system as individuals with multifaceted perspectives that include psychological, biological, cultural, social, financial, educational, vocational, and spiritual components. These components encompass life experiences such as family, friends, health, school, work, legal status, residence, safety and security, finances, play, well-being, and accomplishments. These perspectives are integrated within the individual to form the whole person that the human service professional encounters. During the helping process, the professional is continually aware that the client does not simply represent “a housing issue,” “a food-stamp dilemma,” or “a child-care consideration.” Problems for clients are rarely single issues, and the human service professional should approach each client with the expectation of more than one problem. In fact, one problem can cause, influence, or at the very least be related to other difficulties. The case of Mary is a good example of how challenges in one area influence problems in other areas. The following is from the official record. The client, a 38-year-old white female, was involved in an accident while standing on the corner of a busy street in her hometown. She was hit by an automobile driven by a drunk driver. She sustained a severe head injury, a neck injury, and multiple orthopedic injuries at the scene of the accident. She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and suffered cardiac arrest in route. Her recovery was slow and she was in the hospital for over three months. She was moved to a rehabilitation facility in a town 60 miles away. After three months in rehabilitation, the professionals involved in Mary’s staffing indicated that she would need at least six additional months of rehabilitation. She was unable to speak, had limited daily living skills and limited ambulation, and could communicate slowly. The case manager, the team leader of the human service professionals working with Mary, spent time on funding issues. At present, and projected for the future, Mary needs 24-hour support to sustain her activity and her safety. Her husband, Seth, worked in their hometown and visited each day. The initial concerns for Mary were physical. She sustained multiple injuries and experienced cardiac arrest, so attention to her physical well-being was of primary importance. Once her physical condition stabilized, human service professionals involved with planning and providing her care—using the whole-person perspective—established the following treatment plan that addressed other issues. During each treatment team meeting, the discussion begins with a discussion of Mary’s strengths, her husband’s strengths, and the financial and service delivery resources available. These strengths are embedded in the following plan. The Intervention. Client receives occupational therapy for 0.5 hour, two days a week. Client receives physical therapy for 1.5 hours per day, five days per week or as tolerated. Client has been tested by speech therapist; the test indicated that she does not respond to interaction or treatment. Mobility. Client is not mobile. This immobility places the client at risk. The team is developing some goals that will move client from immobility to using the aid of equipment or device or another person. EXAMPLE 2-2 Journal: Populations in Needs Human Services professionals meet with all types of individuals that are struggling with various addictions or different problems. The individuals or groups that might seek help from a human service professional can differ from a family that is struggling and needs help with housing, food, someone seeking help with employment, or even an individual trying to escape a bad situation. Individuals might look for help for emotional, financial, and/or mental health resources. I've learned there a different ways of receiving help from human services, some individuals can get put in the system, they are referred to as Involuntary clients, which are referred usually by protective services, courts, schools, and the juvenile justice system. Involuntary clients can be hard to work with because they are ordered to receive this help. Clients can receive all that help and get the resources to lead them down the right path. In the human services field, I would like to work with individuals who are suffering from an addiction. This chapter addressed the different brick walls people hit when seeking help. One brick wall is the perception that individuals who might become clients have of human service professionals. For me to build a professional relationship with any of my clients, I will show them they can be comfortable with talking to me by being a good listener, not being judgmental, and always being empathetic. I will make sure to provide my clients with the resources that they need. If my client needs emotional support, especially in an emergency, I will be sure to be there if need be. Some individuals might require extra support, like needing to be checked on, especially if him/her are emotionally stressed or experiencing personal issues. I believe with any human services professional/client relationship there is an expectation to provide the absolute best and to be able to help my client have the strength to face their demons and not look back. So, he/she will be able to beat their addiction whatever his/her addiction may be. So, they can live the best life. source..