Essay on Human Services: Impact of Values and Ideologies

This essay explores the complex landscape of human services, examining how personal values and dominant ideologies, as expressed through media and politics, shape the field. The author reflects on their own values and how they perceive the world, setting the stage for an analysis of how media and political ideologies impact human services. The essay delves into the perspectives on human services, the role of social justice, and the influence of various societal forces. It discusses how media portrays social service organizations and how political ideologies affect the laws and well-being of society. The essay analyzes the implications of policies, such as those differentiating between deserving and undeserving poor, and the impact of media portrayals on public perception and the social services workforce. The author emphasizes the importance of transparency, accountability, and the need for reform within the human services sector to ensure that it effectively serves and improves the lives of those it aims to support. References are provided to support the arguments presented.

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Human services
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Human service work can provide an opportunity for social change as well as a means of
maintaining social order.
Part one: Personal values on human services
Human service field focuses on using an individual’s knowledge and skills to assist other people
meet their needs. The aim of human services does not only focus on the needs but also ensure
that the several problems that face human life are dealt with and a solution provided with
immediate effect. There exists various perception on human services. For instance, one of the
main thinking is that human services fight for social justice by empowering various people and
liberating them from the challenges they are facing (Almog-Bar and Schmid, 2014: p.13). On the
other hand, there exist other people who assume that human services are used as a ladder to
control social matters. However, from the research, one of the objectives in human services is
social control and is a core goal that cannot be ignored.
From a personal viewpoint, which is based on the socialism and other philosophies, the goal of
human services is to improve the welfare of people in a given society through awareness and
empowerment. After education and empowerment, most of the members of the society are able
to make the ends meet without being intimate. In today’s world, the purpose of social services
should not only be serving people but also profitable initiatives that motivate the services.
However, some services have been colonized by big organizations for their own selfish gain. For
instance, the media fraternity is full of big companies advertising their goods and services but
lacking any clear agenda to the people in the society (Garrow and Hasenfeld, 2014: p.85).
Several business corporations have exploited members of the society in the name of social
services. For example, in the situation where there is an outbreak of a crisis such as a flood, war

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among other chaos, companies come out in large numbers to provide social services.
Consequently, if one can look deeply into what is happening, the big companies are taking
advantage of the situation to exploit members of the society. At the end of the day, these
corporations come out with huge chunks of money from a very poor society. Considering such
issue and the goal of human services, this is not what it should be, the companies are gaining
while poor individuals are crying out.
Human services should be guided by the rule of human rights and social justice (McNall, Scott
and Nicklin, 2015: p.93). The organizations are going against such values and in turn, they view
it as a profit-making institute. From a point of personal view, the authorities should come out
strongly to guide the sector of human services. If a company is coming out to provide human
services it should undergo some scrutiny to validate whether it has what human services reflects.
The current trends coming out in the world shows clearly that human services are not a one-man
show. The inclusivity of private sectors and the government would enable accountability. The
poor members of the society should not be robbed but their lives should improve from human
services provided by the various organization. It is a high time that various country needs to
reform the human services sector to ensure transparency.
Part 2: How dominant ideologies (as expressed by media and politics) impact on human
services
Dominant ideologies on human services are the perspective of various people concerning human
services. The media and politics ideologies have influenced human services both positively and
negatively. When it comes to political ideology, there are things that concern the laws and the
general well-being that have influenced human services (Mackelprang, Salsgiver and Salsgiver,
2016). The politicians make and amend laws which have a direct influence on human services.

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Different leaders who arise in power our diverse approaches to facing the social issue. For
instance, there was a change in social policy when labor policy was implemented in various
countries. In 1997, the social policies mainly focused on differentiating undeserving poor people
and deserving once (Leiter, 2017: pp.240). Using this policy, it illustrates that deserving poor are
the individuals who have lacked basic needs because of their fault while undeserving have
nothing totally to blame for their reason of being poor. The policy of identifying the deserving
and undeserving poor have an impact on human services. For example, before helping people in
the society, one would be tasked to identify the deserving and undeserving. The deserving poor
would be served first as the other people wait. However, this has not been the case for human
services have always been common to everybody.
On the other hand, the ideology brought by media is inevitable. For instance, the media have
worked to identify the organizations that hide in the name of providing social services but at the
end of the day, they reap what they had not planted. The impact of the ideology on social
services is that very many people in the society have come to fear organizations that are giving
out the social services. Some of these organizations are genuine, but the perception that has been
going from one generation to another have influenced social services negatively. Very many
people choose to pay other individuals to access a service that going for free service no matter
how genuine it can be.
Another important ideology propelled through media is that those who provide social services
end up struggling in life because of low pay. The belief of low or no payment has gotten to the
minds of several people (Gray, Dean, Agllias, Howard and Schubert, 2015: p.370). Now, this
ideology has impacted social services in various ways. One way is that several professions have
feared to join social services agencies as they fear the issue of retiring without even pension in

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their lives. However, there is a positive ideology that has helped the sector of social services. The
politicians see that the population have increased therefore social services needs more resources
such as funding. The government makes the budget that accommodates social service activities
in the country.
Consequently, there is another ideology that social services are biased to a certain group of
people. The more powerful your community is the faster you can have access to social services.
The idea has erupted mixed reactions between communities as others end up chasing the social
services providers (Selden and Sowa, 2015: pp.187).
Lastly, human service is a key sector to a growth of the nation, however, there are some issues
such as transparency that the authority should check into. Besides that, the ideologies that are
going on concerning social services should be true as they influence the services deeply.

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References
Almog-Bar, M. and Schmid, H., 2014. Advocacy activities of nonprofit human service
organizations: A critical review. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 43(1), pp.11-35.
Garrow, E.E. and Hasenfeld, Y., 2014. Institutional logics, moral frames, and advocacy:
Explaining the purpose of advocacy among nonprofit human-service organizations. Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43(1), pp.80-98.
Gray, M., Dean, M., Agllias, K., Howard, A. and Schubert, L., 2015. Perspectives on
neoliberalism for human service professionals. Social Service Review, 89(2), pp.368-392.
Leiter, M.P., 2017. Burnout as a developmental process: Consideration of models.
In Professional burnout (pp. 237-250). Routledge.
Mackelprang, R.W., Salsgiver, R.O. and Salsgiver, R., 2016. Disability: A diversity model
approach in human service practice. Oxford University Press.
McNall, L.A., Scott, L.D. and Nicklin, J.M., 2015. Do positive affectivity and boundary
preferences matter for work–family enrichment? A study of human service workers. Journal of
Occupational Health Psychology, 20(1), p.93.
Selden, S.C. and Sowa, J.E., 2015. Voluntary turnover in nonprofit human service organizations:
The impact of high performance work practices. Human Service Organizations: Management,
Leadership & Governance, 39(3), pp.182-207.
Woodside, M.R. and McClam, T., 2016. Generalist case management: A method of human
service delivery. Nelson Education.