Advocacy in human services

Advocacy Human Services

One of the most important components in the field of human services is advocacy, which is also regarded as an essential requirement for code of ethics and accreditation standards for human service-related professions. Given the significance of advocacy, several human service organizations have developed standards to guide advocacy practices in human services and social work. Examples of such organizations include the National Organization for Human Services, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Council for Standards in Human Service Education (Snow, 2013). However, advocacy in human services practice is governed by certain principles and is geared towards accomplishing certain purposes that enhances its effectiveness. The use of these principles and purpose of advocacy is attributable to its impact on social change, especially within the context of social work and practice.

Advocacy is basically defined as an active process that focuses on helping people achieve something they need which would otherwise be difficult to achieve without such help. This definition emerges from the fact that advocacy emerges from the concept of defense, support or acting on behalf of other individuals. The main purpose of advocacy in human services is to promote social justice through eliminating obstacles or social ills that are brought by social inequality and different kinds of oppression. As a result, advocacy process or practice deals with issues relating to privilege, discrimination, resource allocation, violence, and power. When addressing these issues, advocacy in human services focuses on disadvantaged individuals or groups. The outcome of these processes is to promote the creation of systems that contribute to the development of a fair and just society (Snow, 2013).

Regardless of the issues being addressed, advocacy efforts are guided by several principles including competence, which entails having a good knowledge of the case and the issues relating to it. Secondly, advocacy requires awareness of the vulnerabilities of those affected by the issues being addressed. Third, there is need to maintain clarity of purpose and confidentiality when carrying out advocacy initiatives. The fourth principle of advocacy is putting the interests of the individuals or groups first and focusing on empowering them. Additionally, a positive approach is required when undertaking advocacy efforts in order to promote equality and social inclusion.

According to Fayoyin (2013), advocacy is a vital strategy for promoting and achieving change to an extent that it has been utilized by several national and international agencies to foster social development. It affects social change by influencing policy making decisions and promoting issues associated with social development (Fayoyin, 2013). In this regard, advocacy acts as a communication tool through which policymakers become aware of major social issues and develop policies and systems to address these issues. The developed policies and systems become the premise for social change by promoting social development.