Bshs305 the Helping Professional

The Helping Professional

Donna Barragan

BSHS/305

March 13, 2017

Cassidy Hawf

Human Service Professionals

The field of Human Services is a multi-layer set of interdisciplinary skills set to help individuals and communities acquire the skills necessary to lead and independent and productive life.  There are many professional disciplines involved at any one time, including psychology, sociology, and anthropology, depending on the needs of the client being helped.  The objective of the human service helpers according to Thorpe (2016), “The objective is meeting human needs through an interdisciplinary knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations" (Health Education: Training of Human Services Students, pg. 23).  This type of services involves respecting and understanding the client from their point of view in their community, and the professional and social pressures that directly affect them.  As the standards and needs of a community or society may change depending on the dynamics of that community, so does the needs of the individuals within that community, and it is something that a human services professional has to keep in consideration.  

The Helping Process

There are five stages of the helping process, and all must be considered when attempting to help a client, as it can start the foundation of the trusting relationship between the helper and the client.  The first stage, preparation, is reviewing any and all information provided initially by the client to try and get an idea of the services they will need.  Many of the clients are reluctant to seek services due to their culture or being prideful, so the atmosphere must convey confidentiality for the client to feel they are in a safe and caring place.  In the second stage, when the client arrives, the helper should greet the client cheerfully and attempt to open up the conversation with small talk to set the client at ease.  In this stage, the helper helps the client with the initial paperwork process and gives a brief background on human services and their goals in working with individuals and societies.  To keep the meeting structured, a brief discussion of the expectations of both parties is conducted, and this gives the client a chance to understand the process and what is expected of them.  After the ground rules are set, it is time to discuss with the client the problem they are having, stage three, and what type of help they are seeking.  At this point in the conversation, the helper needs to listen to the client and ask pertinent questions to get a better background on the client and the community with which they live.  This is about listening to the "whole person," as some of their problems could stem from another existing problem in their current life or lifestyle.  This is crucial to getting to the root of the problem and could be the catapult that brings the client to their success or failure.  Once the helper feels they have a good idea of the problem, then the discussion starts of planning the strategy to change the situation.  Stage four, intervention strategies, is the stage where the goals are set, and the strategies are made to accomplish these goals.  It is important for the client to be an active participant in the planning, as the helper wants them to feel that they have made this accomplishment on their own, if not the client could develop a dependency on the helper and be afraid to make these decisions without them.  The final stage, termination, comes at the completion of regular sessions when the client begins to prosper independently.  This is not always the case, especially if the client is not seriously motivated to change or are compelled by the justice system to attend.  Once this begins to happen, the human services helper will continue to monitor the progress of the client, referring additional sources of help when needed.