Empowering Others – A Story of Constructive Assistance and Leadership in Human Services

Empowering Others – A Story of Constructive Assistance and Leadership in Human Services

I remember when I was young, there was an elderly couple who lived across our street. I recall the couple had DVD collections of memories they had collected of themselves since they were young, to getting married, and of their children growing up. Unfortunately, one day the DVD player broke down and almost destroyed one of the DVDs, so they decided maybe it was time to upgrade. I was excited to help them out, and I copied every tape in the right order into a disk that I inserted in their television, making it a three simple step process to access the videos. The result was the old couple was surprised by how easy it was for them to access the videos; they initially feared that they could not understand new technology. Subsequently, I felt happy that I was of service to them, and I somehow made their lives easier and helped them keep enjoying one of their favorite activities.

Leadership, particularly servant leadership, is essential in human service practitioners. The main role of human service practitioners is to help individuals get the help and support they require to succeed. This is the basis of servant leadership: to serve others and help them achieve whatever they set out to do (Spears, 2010). Frances Perkins is an example of a successful human service practitioner from the 20th century. Some of her successes include unemployment benefits, welfare for impoverished Americans, and pensions for older adults who were uncovered, all of which she established under the Social Security Act (Miller & Miller, 2016). Further achievements of hers include the federal minimum wage adoption and federal laws that regulated child labor.

Further traits that I consider important in human service practitioners include cultural competency and effective communication. Cultural competency helps one become open-minded and aware of how diverse cultures are and their impact on people (Purnell, 2016). In this line of work, one encounters many people from diverse backgrounds, and through cultural competence, one can work efficiently because there are no disparities. Effective communication is all about clarity when communicating with someone. As a human service practitioner, one must listen and understand what the client needs. This includes utilizing both verbal and non-verbal cues to understand their intentions and emotions (Bramhall, 2014), as it is the only way one can be able to help clients.

References

Bramhall, E. (2014). Effective communication skills in nursing practice. Nursing Standard (2014+), 29(14), 53.

Miller, S. P., & Miller, S. P. (2016). The Fifty-Four-Hour Bill and Social Work’s Alternative Professionalization. The New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work: Frances Perkins and the Confluence of Early Twentieth Century Social Work with Mid-Twentieth Century Politics and Government, 18-31.

Purnell, L. D. (2016). The Purnell model for cultural competence. In Intervention in mental health-substance use (pp. 57-78). CRC Press.

Spears, L. C. (2010). Character and servant leadership: Ten characteristics of effective, caring leaders. The journal of virtues & leadership, 1(1), 25-30.

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A Story of Constructive Assistance and Leadership in Human Services

Post a description of a time when you were asked to help someone else and you responded constructively to help solve the problem. Explain the result. Explain why leadership is an important characteristic of a human services practitioner. Provide an example of a successful human services practitioner to support your response. Finally, describe two additional characteristics you consider vital to the role of a human services practitioner, and explain why they are vital.