Brief History
of Human Service Education
"During the
late 1950s and 1960s, there were dramatic changes in the area of helping those
in need. Populations like the poor, the unemployed, children in need, the
elderly, the disabled, the substance abuser and others began to be recognized as
needing social and rehabilitation services. About this time, new legislation
mandated that those formerly served in state mental hospitals would now be
deinstitutionalized and would henceforth be seen in the communities in which
they lived. It was not long before it became obvious that the traditional human
resources would not meet the needs of the helping services being offered.
The community based
mental health system necessitated that professionals be trained in a different
manner. While the provision of mental health services was undergoing these
changes, the civil rights movement brought attention to social justice and
equity issues. Consumers of social services became more involved in advocating
for themselves and in creating services that would meet their own needs. Thus
"grass roots" (started by the clients) level activism created
opportunities for new approaches to human services. Amidst all these changes, a
new class of workers was born.
Originally called paraprofessionals, these
workers were often those who had been served by the helping system and had a
better sense of the qualities and skills that were important for helpers to
possess. Thus, what had begun as an informal orientation to helping would soon
become formalized as competency based mental health/human services training.
To meet the demand
for and the availability of educational programs based on the development of
competencies, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1956, provided
the resources to establish the first associate degree program in mental health
at Purdue University. This would be the forerunner of human services programs
across the country.
It was not long before two-year colleges were offering human
services (sometimes called mental health) degrees. Four year colleges were not
far behind in developing and offering bachelors degrees in human services.
Today
the number of certificate, associate, baccalaureate and more recently graduate
degrees in human services has grown to more than five hundred academic programs.
Associate level human service degrees continue to be the majority of degrees
awarded for human services." (NOHS)
The pioneers of
human services training and education programs felt that the answer to the
workforce shortage was not to train another group of specialized professionals
but to develop an entirely new kind of worker, the "generalist".
Generalists are
trained in a wide variety of helping interventions so that they may provide
direct services to individuals or groups with a diversity of needs. These
generalists also work in many different service settings integrating and
coordinating the efforts of specialized professionals. Although graduates may
vary from program to program in response to local needs, human service
generalists are trained in basic helping skills essential to the helping
relationship.
These
skills include:
