Group Work in the Human Service Industry
Group work in the Human Services Field
Introduction
Group work has been cited as playing an integral role in ensuring that people achieve more collaboratively than working as individuals. In addition, group work has been perceived as a robust mechanism of helping people attain some novel skills and specific goals, mostly when a group is founded upon a particular objective. Nonetheless, despite these benefits attributed to working in groups, it is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that in many cases, it requires extensive efforts to ensure that a group evolves into an effective team. Against this backdrop, this paper will analyze the group work within the human service field with the focus group being ‘Open Doors’, whose operations are founded on the need to support young people who identify as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It is fundamental to briefly explore this organization aimed at getting a comprehensive insight into its groups work operations, group work theory underpinning it among other tenets.
Human Services:
Although the words ‘human services’ can mean different things according to individual experiences, not everyone understands the industry or field as a whole. The human service industry according to Woodside and McClam (2011:4-9) is extremely complex to define, although overall, it is the overarching industry of professionals that provide a diverse range of services to humans in need. The aim of the professionals within the industry is to work with people to support, assist and empower them to meet their own needs whether those needs are for food, shelter, physical or emotional to name a few. Therefore, the human service field is at the forefront of many of the youth services provided both locally and overseas.
Open Doors at a glance
According to Open Doors website (2012:1), this group is located at the center of Brisbane and its core undertaking revolve around the provision of counseling and support services for the
Introduction
Group work has been cited as playing an integral role in ensuring that people achieve more collaboratively than working as individuals. In addition, group work has been perceived as a robust mechanism of helping people attain some novel skills and specific goals, mostly when a group is founded upon a particular objective. Nonetheless, despite these benefits attributed to working in groups, it is imperative to be cognizant of the fact that in many cases, it requires extensive efforts to ensure that a group evolves into an effective team. Against this backdrop, this paper will analyze the group work within the human service field with the focus group being ‘Open Doors’, whose operations are founded on the need to support young people who identify as being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It is fundamental to briefly explore this organization aimed at getting a comprehensive insight into its groups work operations, group work theory underpinning it among other tenets.
Human Services:
Although the words ‘human services’ can mean different things according to individual experiences, not everyone understands the industry or field as a whole. The human service industry according to Woodside and McClam (2011:4-9) is extremely complex to define, although overall, it is the overarching industry of professionals that provide a diverse range of services to humans in need. The aim of the professionals within the industry is to work with people to support, assist and empower them to meet their own needs whether those needs are for food, shelter, physical or emotional to name a few. Therefore, the human service field is at the forefront of many of the youth services provided both locally and overseas.
Open Doors at a glance
According to Open Doors website (2012:1), this group is located at the center of Brisbane and its core undertaking revolve around the provision of counseling and support services for the
References: Open Doors website, 2012, Retrieved 25th August, 2012, .