Human services is a term that is often used to refer to programs that are designed to help and assist people with several different aspects of life, including top trends in foodservice, healthcare, and shelter.
Many professionals who decide to go into the field of human services do so because they enjoy helping others and making a difference.
Some of the main benefits of working in this field include high rewards and emotional satisfaction, competitive pay, and high demand.
You might be an ideal fit for a role within human services if you want to get into a career where you can focus a lot of your time and energy into helping others improve their lives.
What is Human Services?
Human services is a field that mainly focuses on providing services to people who need them the most.
Many careers within the human services field will involve organizing support programs and other opportunities for providing resources and support to communities and individuals that need them the most.
There are various different areas of expertise in the field of human services including nursing, social work, healthcare therapy, and other careers that allow you to offer support to people such as running substance abuse programs or providing shelters for the homeless or victims of domestic violence.
Because of this, human services professionals tend to work in a wide variety of different settings and areas including in law enforcement, hospitals, clinics, crisis and urgent care centers, community centers and for the government.
No matter what job they do or the setting that they work in, all human services careers will typically involve helping others in some way. Here are some careers in the field of human services to consider.
Child Advocate
Child advocates are specialist social workers who work closely with children who are in the foster care or adoption system.
They help to place children in new homes either through foster care or the adoption process.
This is an important role where the social worker is responsible for making sure that the child they are representing is safeguarded from harm.
They will often do this by regularly visiting foster families and adoptive homes to ensure that they are able to offer a healthy, safe and supportive living environment for the child to stay in.
They need to be able to clearly communicate the background and needs of the child to the foster and adoptive families and may often attend court hearings to represent the child in front of a judge and make recommendations about their living arrangements.
Caseworker
A caseworker is a professional who helps clients who are in need of assistance with the current circumstances that they are in.
Caseworkers have a range of responsibilities which might include paying home visits, conducting psychological evaluations, and keeping records of changing situations in order to prove instances of neglect or illegal activity, for example.
They may also be tasked with providing counseling and education to their clients in order to help them establish a healthier home environment.
Behavioral Therapist
Behavioral therapists are healthcare professionals who work closely with patients that are suffering with mental health issues and disorders.
Behavioral therapists often meet with patients to find out more about them and what they are struggling with the most in order to best help them put a plan in place for developing healthier behaviors and coping mechanisms that can often be as a replacement for existing yet more unhealthy ones.
They work with patients to develop therapy and treatment schedules and work to facilitate communication between patients and family members for patients who are staying in a rehabilitation facility or residential program.
Psychiatric Registered Nurse
Mental health or psychiatric nurses are registered nurses who primarily deal with patients who are suffering with their mental health.
This role often involves working in psychiatric units; however, mental health nurses can often be found in many other healthcare settings.
Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners are a type of advanced practice registered nurses who also primarily deal with mental health patients.
They have the ability to diagnose mental health conditions in patients and can prescribe treatments or develop care plans that use a combination of medication and therapy to help patients recover or at least be able to better manage their symptoms and live a happier and more fulfilling life.
Occupational Therapist
Occupational therapists are professionals who provide support and care for patients who are experiencing a chronic or long-term illness, injury, or disability.
They are often tasked with developing treatment plans for their patients and working with them to help them perform activities and exercises during therapy appointments.
They are often instrumental in helping patients manage their illness, injury, or disability day to day through responsibilities such as making recommendations for how patients can improve accessibility and mobility at home or at work.
Probation Officer
Probation officers are law enforcement professionals that guide people who are currently going through the process of serving probation.
This often involves holding regular meetings with their clients to discuss their progress and communicating with employers, family members, and friends to ensure that all the information that they have been provided with is accurate.
Probation officers are often highly impactful in the lives of the people that they work with, helping people who might have turned to crime in the past make real differences to their lives through training, counseling, advice, and practical support.
Substance Abuse Counselor
Substance abuse counselors are mental health professionals who primarily work with patients that are experiencing substance abuse issues such as addiction to alcohol or drugs.
They will often meet with patients to determine the right level of care and intervention for them.
They work closely with patients to establish what their goals are for treatment and come up with plans that often include a combination of therapy and rehabilitation activities along with medication where appropriate.
After a patient has finished the substance abuse counseling program, the substance abuse counselor will often help them continue heading in the right direction by recommending support groups and other resources that they might find useful for helping with their sobriety.
Grant Writer
A grant writer is somebody who drafts proposals in order to earn funding for organizations from sources such as the government.
In some cases, this could come under the umbrella of the human services field as it might involve writing new proposals for grant applications for companies that work directly with people to provide care and support where it is needed the most.
The job involves a range of tasks including organizing fundraising activities, communicating with donors, and finding new grant applications to write proposals for on behalf of an organization or organizations.
Emergency Services Manager
The role of an emergency services manager is to oversee the plans of an organization or community for responding to an emergency situation.
This might involve a range of different tasks including organizing educational programs for communities on how to stay safe and remain calm in the event of various different emergency situations, developing or overseeing the development of emergency response plans for various situations including natural disasters or malicious attacks, or creating protocols for distributing and mobilizing materials in an emergency situation.
These professionals are often given the task of evaluating the need for funding within a community and finding resources to provide the necessary funding for emergency responses.
Why Work in Human Services?
As you can see, there is a wide and varied range of roles available for those who are interested in a human services career.
There are several reasons to consider working in human services, which include:
· High Satisfaction:
Any career where you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are using your time at work to help people who need your support the most can be extremely rewarding, making any tough and challenging times that you go through at work completely worth it.
While many human services career options do not come without their ups and downs, most professionals who work in this field will agree that it is extremely emotionally rewarding work to take on.
· Make a Difference:
No matter what human services career you choose to pursue, they all have one major factor in common in that they allow you to make a real difference to the lives of the people that you are working with on a regular basis.
Unlike many other career options, working in human services allows you to us your skills, qualities and expertise to improve life for your clients in many different ways.
· Good Career Outlooks:
Most of the career options within human services come with an excellent career outlook, competitive rates of pay, and high demand.
This is especially true right now with the COVID-19 pandemic leading to a higher need for good human services professionals to help affected individuals better deal with the situation the pandemic has left them in.
Human services is a field that covers a range of different types of careers designed to help and support other people.