Problems of Human Services Clients Essay

In this paper, I will be describing the range of problems facing human services clients and how the specific helping skills that can be used with clients. There are many problems a human services faces with a client. The needs can range from helping clients with issues such as, substance abuse, mental or physical illness, grief, disabilities, caring for children and families, domestic violence, Veterans, and a personal loss. Also, a human services clients can have a large range of family problems that can lead into more difficult problems. (Woodside & McClam, (2011). A human service worker must gain clients trust to help a client get the best possible help they need. For instance, some predictable problems are due to a rapid change in society such as loss of jobs, homeless of families with disabilities. However, we all need to work together as a team so that we can provide help with their daily needs. In addition, when human service professional is working with a child they must identify if the home is a safe place to live. Also, a human service must ensure that a child have its basic needs to survive. They can also work with the parents by helping them with family planning such as birth control for each individual. Moreover, a human service professional can also help with parenting classes for their parents. Some countries cultures are different. However, there are several ways a human service can guide parents how to fill out an application for food stamp assistance so that the family will have a meal to eat every day. Another problem a client may face is to find good childcare for their child. For instance, a client may have job, but can’t afford a daycare for their children due to low pay wages. (Woodside & McClam, (2011). Human services help clients that need assistance with low income housing. There are some people facing problems with domestic violence in their home. However, most situations can be dangerous and physical violent causing someone to get hurt or bodily injury causing a death. Moreover, children living in a violent environment can be in danger for their lives. Therefore, a child can be taken from their home by human services because the child is no longer safe. Human service helper must take the necessary measures to finding a foster or an adoptive parent for their client children’s. The primary categories of problems that affect a client of human services are gather together into social-cultural barriers. Moreover, there are a huge figures that affect clients whom need services under this group. There are many problems in some cultures, a women can’t accept family planning services from a human service provider because the woman can’t make that decision. They would have to get permission from their husbands. Communication is the key to understand one another by sending messages to each other. We use communication to get to know the client perspective of the situation. (pg. 201). A human service provider pay close attention of the client by focusing on the verbal and nonverbal messages from a client. Communication is a very important factor in helping with a client. According to Woodside & McClam, (2011). Furthermore, communicating with one another can make the problem solving process of a client flow smoother. Woodside & McClam, 2011 report that communication involves sending a message to another person with the conscious intent of affecting the receiver’s behavior. (pg. 201). In figure 7. 2 (pg.  201) shows the method when a person is receiving the message and if he understands the sender message correctly this is an effective communication. A message can be verbal or nonverbal. For instance, a client can walk into a human service office, the helper say to him verbally,† Hello, how are doing today? † A verbal communication is when words come out of a person mouth. The client didn’t speak to the human service provider, he just shrug his shoulders and nodded his head forward. The behavior of the client was non-verbal because he didn’t show any reaction. The well-educated skillful helper interpret the sender’s message by the client behavior. (Woodside & McClam, 2011). (OKUN & Kantrowitz, 2008). Reported the professional worker is able to hear what the client was saying by the way he reacted. Moreover, a person may smile and give out a handshake, this a non-verbal behavior. Non-verbal behaviors consist of a client’s posture, tone of voice, gestures, eye contact, and touch. For example, when we first go out on a date, we want to impress the other person by smiling, talking in a soft low voice. Furthermore, good eye contact is better whenever, we are communicating with each other. Therefore, we must make a good impression when we first meet a person. Next step in helping skills that can be utilized with a client is listening and responding. (pg. 204). Listening and responding according to Woodside and McClam, (2011). Researched that the way we listen and respond to person is very important in the helping skills process because a human service provider can build a trusting relationship with their client. Moreover, a person must hear what the other person is saying by sending a message verbally or non-verbally. Some people think they are good listeners, but most people aren’t. (See Table 7. 3). (Woodside & McClam, (2011). There are healthy behaviors in communication such as, verbal behaviors. Verbal behaviors are mirroring a person feelings, clarifying, showing a sense of humor, providing information that a client needs, explaining helper roles, sharing information about oneself, being non-judgmental, asking questions, making the right use of gestures and touching. Nonverbal behaviors are making eye contact, listening to a person, smiling, nodding head one’s head, leaning forward, maintain a relaxed posture, facing the client, displaying facial expression, being punctual, and maintaining a moderate rate of speech. (pg. 204). In addition, we must focus on the client by utilizing these helping skills to help provide the necessary help a client may need. In the text book, (pg. 205). There is a certain kind of listening a human service engage in is called responsive listening or active listening. There are two ways of responsive listening or active listening that is presented by Egan (2010, pp. 134-135) he offered that there are many things that a helper can do to talk to a person that they are paying close attention. (Woodside & McClam, (2011). In conclusion, Egan (20) researched that there are five behaviors that a human service professional can follow to let their clients know they are listening. First, s means face the client, O means adopt an open posture, L means lean toward the other person, E means maintain good eye contact, and R means try to be relatively relaxed. Furthermore, these are acronym SOLER. Moreover, remembering these acronym can show a person that the helper is listening. Attending behavior is another way a helper can let the client know that they are pay attention and listening. In this paper, I have discussed some ranges of problems facing human service clients and specific helping skills that can be used with clients.