The purpose of this course requirement is to give students a practical experience with human services concepts with opportunities to research historical events, interview local agencies, assess overall service delivery, and develop their writing ability. Students will assess how they have achieved an accurate understanding of the social problems connected to human services. Critical thinking skills and learning to meet human needs are paramount to understanding the goals of human services. The expected level of course performance will be demonstrated by the students’ ability to synthesize knowledge in this writing assignment.
Part 1: Agency interview: Students will choose a local agency/organization to visit and interview a person in a management/leadership and service delivery capacity.
Part 2: The paper will include an overview of the agency/organization, policies, goals, challenges, funding, populations served, recipient protocol, geographical area, etc.
Assess and evaluate a public or private local agency. Students will conduct a 30 minute interview with someone in leadership at a human services agency.
Include an overview of the history and goals of the human services field (in general, based on what you’ve read/learned in this course).
Include a discussion of the chosen agency’s organizational roles, goals, challenges, and strength-based concepts/successes, and cultural competency standards.
Discuss the target population served and protocol to receive services.
Research and discuss relevant policy/legislation and perceptions surrounding the target population served and social problems addressed.
Provide an assessment of your (the students) values/beliefs about recipients of social services agencies.
Provide an overview of media messages and attitudes regarding social class, public assistance, etc. and assess the impact of this on the population served by the agency.
Discuss the prevalent theories that guide and inform the services that the agency provides.
Assess the prominent ethical issues that this agency tends to encounter. Relate these to the NOHS ethical standards.
Other paper guidelines:
The Draft should be at least 5 pages of content.
The Final paper should be 10-15 pages.
The Draft will be a shorter version of the Final paper, including major sections (can be summarized) for review from the professor. (Please add a separate cover page, abstract, and references section, per APA formatting/style). Students with good writing skills may submit a detailed outline format instead of paragraph format for the draft.
At least four citations from academic sources other than the textbook.
APA format is required.
The paper must be double-spaced, one-inch margins, 12 font, and free of grammatical and spelling errors.
In assessing your written work, attention will be given to what you say and how you say it: Style, grammar, organization, presentation, and content. Work that is not acceptable may be returned without a grade and you may be given an opportunity to resubmit with deducted points.
In an APA paper of this level, reflecting the number of each item is excessive and a bit distracting. The paper needs to be rewritten so that its not reflecting the number of each item.
