Strengths and weaknesses in human service programs

¶ … Human Service Programs

In the ongoing attempt to recover human service programs, policymakers, funders, and service providers are progressively acknowledging the position of difficult program evaluations. They want to distinguish what the programs achieve, what they cost, and how they should be functioned to achieve supreme cost-effectiveness. They want to identify which programs work for which areas, and they want suppositions based on proof, rather than impassioned pleas and testimonials. With that said, it is important to understand what are the strengths and weaknesses in the Human Service Programs.

What is Human Services?

Human services are provide assistance aid to citizens that need help in getting or upholding basic human essentials, such as shelter, health and food," to name a few." Social programs also delivers human services, such as psychological requirements, help in distributing with trauma from abuse or sickness as well as complications of disasters, such as climate provoked disturbances or possible disastrous losses. Human services are vital to help a person in retaining their independence and dignity when all other avenues crash, such as the loss of job, foreclosure on a person's homes, and when there is no food. A person can undergo mental annoyance when the methods to care for him or her is no longer feasible, creating the essential for such programs as healthcare and possibly psychiatric care to back in placing the individual back on the road to recuperation (Martin, 2007).

Weakness of a Human Service Program

One of the weaknesses in the program is the subject of willful wrongdoing which is very much open to much debate a view regarding unemployment recompense in the United States. "Deliberate misconduct is the high level of fault that prohibits an out-of-work worker from unemployment benefits" (Cihon & Castagnera, 2008, p. 332). Queries arise as to precisely what deliberate misbehavior means. In a case of absenteeism, misconduct questions ascend as to whether the employee is just direct slothful or is it for other motives. In the case of sluggishness, a denial of joblessness aids would be justified (Hays, 2004). Nevertheless, what if a worker is late or absent because their child is always sick? In this condition the employee will still possibly be fired but their joblessness rewards could possibly be taken away until that worker finds another place of work (Vozoris, N., & Tarasuk, V. (2004). The problem with willful misconduct is "if the misbehavior is not willingly discernible to the normal worker and the employer was unsuccessful to declare a rule or give a notice for prior violations, an unemployment arbitrator may be most hesitant to refuse welfares" (Yoshikawa, H., & Seidman, E. 2001). Parallel to the worker's recompense program, determinations that are pleaded can be evaluated by a referee. If this does not turn out right the case may end up in a state court system (Wilson, B. 1998).

Another limitation in welfare programs is that it cannot be operative if the needed population is not reached. Broad coverage is attained effortlessly under worldwide programs for which, by term, everyone is qualified. One of the weaknesses is that Broad exposure is harder under both employer mandates and social insurance because entitlement involves connection to employment (Yoshikawa, H., & Seidman, E. 2001). Some people just do not have adequate accessory to gain qualification; others are working in unofficial and casual labor markets, in which a lot of employers do not obey with the law. Employee orders are probable to be even more difficult to impose than are employer commands and voluntary services are likely to have an even lesser rate of contribution. Finally, means-tested programs may not be able to reach a considerable part of the population they are planned to assist, in part be-cause not all of the intended population knows the service is obtainable and in part because some of them are disheartened by the bother of requesting for aids or the stigma related with get them accepted (Vozoris, N., & Tarasuk, V., 2004).

Also, a weakness is that people are abusing the welfare system, not by being in circumstances to get welfare but by having children out of marriage and benefiting from them. This is a weakness because a lot are flying under the radar and not being detected. This usually causes those children to become poverty stricken and to continue this process. As mentioned in "Welfare System Abuses Children," "… [the welfare] system that urges kids to have kids…."(Welfare System Abuses Children), this is making teenagers to start having children to get more funds from the government, which normally do not go to the kids. It is normal for a woman to have a child as a teenager (Sawhill). Also mentioned in Welfare Reform: An Examination of the Issues "Young pregnant women and mothers and are somewhat less likely to marry in states with greater benefits."(Sawhill) Jesse Handy writes in "Is the welfare system being right? Improvement needed for those who decline to help themselves," "while many have grown up over time, might remember two types of welfare recipients: those who got aid short-term and were self-conscious about it, and those who treated it as their main basis of revenue. There is a case of one woman who had a lot of children and paid all of her bills through the welfare system"(Handy). This is just one example how the system is being abused.

Welfare is a good program as long as it is utilized right. If an individual gets welfare during financial distress, then that is okay. However, when someone misused the program and gets government funds because they can make more money this way, it becomes tainted, and when people abuse the system by having kids out of marriage to get more funds.

As Americans we understand that Social Security is extremely vital for people with incapacities, people with families and for children who have no parents. However, this service also has an assortment of difficulties as well. As people work, they have to disburse taxes that are transmitted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Throughout this procedure people earn "credits" that go regarding suitability for future funds. However, there is a maximum of four credits that they can earn each year. Entitlement for benefits has to do with credits needed by each group. The Social Security contains of mostly five groups. Family Benefits Disability, Survivors, Retirement Medicare and are these major sets. This kind of division has transformed the Social Security in an extremely taxing way. There is another disadvantage or weakness about this program. It is apparent that high salary breadwinners get a payment monthly with a bigger amount of currency than the low money earners. Such advantages are a proportion of the salaries averaged over the most of a working person's era. Persons that are 62 years old can also get these aids but decreased. Formerly, many thought that Social Security was no good. Thanks to the Social Security service roughly 150 million workers are defended and more than 40 million people obtain retirement, survivors and disability benefits. Yet, changes need to be made to make it stronger.

Strength of a Human Service Program

One of the strengths of Social Security System is that it can be summarized as a social safety net where those who are in need can be assisted by both the government and those working to pay Social Security payroll taxes. This will influence those with no or little income where the Social Security system can assign enough money for them to make it. Of course the quantity they can get will also vary on the fact of why they cannot earn it on their own well as how much they have already given to Social Security, which is calculated by the amount and time they produced previous to getting assistance. This form of help can serve a lot of purposes as far as definitely affecting the economy. The older people will be able to retire from their jobs in order pursue new employment chances for the able working public; which can often have a good effect on the United States poverty rate and unemployment rate. Social Security can also help surviving husband and wives as well as disabled workers receive funds due to unforeseen conditions, which in some circumstances can build self-assurance. In the essence, with the help established by those that are retired or in need it can also have a somewhat optimistic consequence on the nation crime rate, where people do not have the desire to go out on an illegal limb just to make it (John, 2005).

Some of the strengths of the welfare reform are that it managed, by 1999 to get the poverty level to go down some. During the early 1990s, overall poverty and child poverty had significantly weakened. Current information displays that some 4.2 million lesser families, including 2.3 million children, live in scarceness today than did in 1998 (Wilson, B. 1998). This happened because of the reform giving itself a facelift. Children that have been starved have been reduced by almost 50% since passing the welfare reform (Yoshikawa, H., & Seidman, E. (2001). By 2006 a lot of the welfare caseloads had been lessens to about 58% since welfare reform was passed. Throughout the past six years, there has been a discount in the degree of upsurge in women having kids out of marriage.

The strength of the Welfare reform was one of the leading public policy stories of the 1990s. Since Congress passed welfare reform in 1996, the amount of people who are getting welfare has been reduced by approximately 60%, and both hunger and poverty have weakened. That has involved a lot of attention, and many experts have endeavored to justify the cause of the big failures in welfare caseloads. Some states underwent significantly greater caseload failures than others. Consequently, a lot of studies examining the achievement of welfare reform have paid close consideration to program difference between the states.

Reference

Boessenkool, K. (1997). Back to work: Learning from the Alberta welfare experiment. Commentary - C.D.Howe Institute, (91), 1-1.

Hays, Sharon (2004). Flat broke with children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Holl, J., Kristen, S.S., & Amy, B.S. (2005). Welfare reform and health insurance: Consequences for parents. American Journal of Public Health, 95(2), 279-85.

Vozoris, N., & Tarasuk, V. (2004). The health of Canadians on welfare. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 95(2), 115-20.

Wilson, B. (1998). Welfare reform: Employers' perceptions of factors associated with Virginia's initiative for employment not welfare. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses,, 81

Yoshikawa, H., & Seidman, E. (2001). Multidimensional profiles of welfare and work dynamics: Development, validation, and associations with child cognitive and mental health outcomes. American Journal of Community Psychology, 29(6), 907-36.