Social Work Commons^™

Human Services: Australian Explorations, David Wiles

Research outputs pre 2011

Human services is an emergent field of study and work in Australia. Its definition is difficult, needing ongoing theoretical and empirical clarification. Despite the contemporary decline of the Australian welfare state; human services has emerged in cultural congruence with historic Australian notions of a 'fair go', of social equity, and of social egalitarianism. Human services constitutes a nascent profession, which - in the main - helps people with problems including mostly members of the social 'underclass'. Human services draws upon a variety of models, but the generic 'problem-solving' methodology applies across all of its fields of service. Thus human service …