​​​(Forbes.com, 2014)

What are the assumptions regarding human service agencies? How do we change these perceptions? First, what are the misconceptions of human service agencies?

A significant portion of the general public is unfamiliar with the term “human services” and, when asked to define or explain the term, most people are simply stumped. When people are pushed to fill in this cognitive hole about human services, they fall back on the following models of service provision:
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• Human services are direct services. Americans assume that human services are exclusively about the provision of direct services. They may not associate human services with the advocacy or prevention work that members of the field stress as essential parts of human service work.

• Human services are charity. There has been a common assumption that human service work is about individual acts of kindness given to poor people in times of distress. Support, particularly financial support, when given to people in need is thought to have a corrupting influence on their motivation to become self-sufficient. According to this logic, the more money that is given to people, the more dependent they become. Therefore, increased funding to organizations providing such services is understood to lead to more dependency. When coupled with the understanding that well-being is primarily about being self-sufficient, human services work is sometimes seen as undermining individual well-being.

• Human services should provide the basics, but only temporarily. Americans share an assumption that human services should only provide for people’s basic or essential needs. Recipients who acquire “extras” are seen as “working the system,” which becomes evidence of corruption in the system as a whole. Furthermore, people reason that the longer the ‘basics” are provided, the more dependent a person will become. Therefore, people stress that services should only be provided on a temporary basis. 

                                                                                           (The Frame Works Institute, 2016)