Human service is a profession that is developing in response to and anticipation of the direction of human needs and human problems (William, 2011). Human service professionals have, therefore, an obligation to maintain high integrity so as to win the confidence of their clients. The professionals protect the clients’ rights to privacy and confidentiality except in situations where confidentiality would cause harm to the clients or others (Donald & Treadwell, 2005). They have to understand that their relationship with and rights of their customers are equal and hence have to demonstrate high expertise in their areas to be able to provide quality services to the satisfaction of their clients.
The environment for human service can be welcoming or challenging. A case of a challenging environment is like that of fire fighting where the professionals have to endure dangerous and boisterous conditions while offering their services. Nursing and other managerial services also come with their challenges. A human service manager, for example, must consider his perceptions regarding the intrinsic nature of his work. Theoretically, there could be closed systems that do not interact with their environments or an open system that interacts with its environment hence affecting the environment. An organization helps to explain well the concept of characteristics and environments of human services because it can either affect the environment or be affected by the environment, and in, either way, it has to maintain its stability( William, 2011).
To explain the concept in detail, an organization like Family Care International helps to bring out a better understanding of my subject. It is a leading humanitarian organization that tries to fight global poverty, and to achieve its mission, it leans much on supporting poor women with the ideology that if women are equipped with proper resources, they have the ability to help their families and probably the community to escape poverty.
Its vision is to seek a world of hope and tolerance and social justice where poverty has been overcome, and people live in dignity and security, and their mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. As a humanitarian organization, its mission and vision are valid, considering a wide range of the world’s population lives in immense poverty, and its situation needs to be turned all around. To achieve this, the visionary staff has to be involved in providing good governance. The organization has men and women of integrity to provide direction and uphold the vision and mission of the organization. It has Mr. W. B Cutter as the Chair, Mrs. H. D. Gayle as the President and CEO, it also has two vice-chairs, a treasurer, secretary, and a board of seventeen personnel.The staff is tasked to come up with strong ideas to help in fighting poverty, and it’s the heart of the organization. The organization has several stakeholders that assist in propelling its mission. The stakeholders include The Global Health Council which helps to ensure that all who strive for improvement and equity in global health have the information and resources needed to succeed, an International initiative on maternal mortality and human rights which advocates for the implementation of effective and equitable policies and programs to reduce maternal mortality, and The Maternal health task force contributes in addressing global health providing a forum dedicated to maternal health.
Others are Women deliver, Global health initiative coalition and Post abortion care consortium which positively impact the organization by providing solutions to health related issue. The organization interacts with the community by providing health care centers, constructing schools, providing clean water, and starting projects that have a positive impact to the society in general. Through doing this, they maintain good contact with their people and as well market themselves to the world. As a humanitarian organization, it faces many challenges from political, economical, technological and social. Unfortunately for the organization, it has to keep on rubbing shoulders with politicians as it offers services. At times, the impact is positive but in others it’s negative when politicians tend to take advantage. The organization is faced by financial challenges because it has to wholly rely on donations and their partners to provide funds.
The massive movement of people from rural to urban areas is also a challenge to the organization since it has to deal with the high populations at a time hence creating demand for the services (Marianne & Tricia, 2011). Rural to urban movement also leads to formation of slums which further complicates the issue. Poor infrastructure, tribal clashes, language barriers and also outdated cultures are among the many social challenges faced by the organization.Technological advancement is also highly affecting the organization. In its quest to offer quality services, the organization has to employ modern technology and in providing this technology, it has to incur massive costs and also has to keep on updating its systems due to the dynamics that are quickly occurring in the world of technology.
The organization however has put in place measures to cope with these challenges. It has formed a committee of very experienced personnel who can unearth the challenges involved and provide remedies for the same. The organization also keeps on reorganizing itself so as to provide fresh ideas in all areas. Stake holders offer financial support.The organization employs use of non partial and non alliance principles as far as politics is concerned. In technology, they have elite group of personnel who offer services so as to keep the organization on its track. Hence, the characteristics and environment of human service therefore is as outlined and is vital to the survival of the population.
References
Donald, T., & Treadwell, J.B. (2005). Student work book for public relations writing, Thousand Oaks. Calif, London: Sage.
Marianne, W., & Tricia, M. (2011). An introduction to human services. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage learning.
William, B. (2011). Human services by contemporary America. Australia, Belmont, C.A: brooks/Cole Cengage learning.