Community Services In Australia: Historical Development And Professional Practice Framework

1. Discussion of the historical development of community services in Australia

2. Overview of the concept of a ‘professional practice framework' and discussion of the generic knowledge and skills required by human service workers.

3. Number and choice of appropriate references

4. Word count, readability, and structure

5. In-text references and reference list, accuracy and use of correct referencing style.

Historical Development of Community Services in Australia

The job which is usually non-paid and performed by a group of people or an individual for the benefit of any community can be termed as community service. Community service is quite different from volunteering in a way that it is not performed on the basis of voluntary. Community service may be performed for variety of reasons like it may be mandatory for the schools to meet the requirements for some class. Community service may be required by the government for the requirement of citizenship. When people engage themselves in community service, they will have a positive impact on the society (Downes & Marchant, 2016). It as helps students acquire life skills and knowledge. There are presence of psychological benefits, social benefits and cognitive benefits. Community service also helps in personal development.  Community service aims to support families in fulfilling their roles, provide support and care when the families are not able to, when the need of the people are not met without intervention. This kind of service includes activities such as providing support for social and personal functioning in daily life which may help in promoting the development of personal skills. Community service also includes activities which will provide support the welfare of children and family, providing financial assistance or residential care.

The Australian State and Territory governments plays a significant role in the provision of community services. The government of Australia ensures that acceptable standard of living is maintained and the vulnerable people in the society are protected. Local governments of Australia are also the providers of the community services (O'Grady, 2014). There are also presence of some community services which are only funded by the local governments. The participation of government in the community services consists of offering services to the clients, funding the community services which are non-governmental. The government of Australia also monitors and evaluates community service programs. It also takes the responsibility of planning strategically and policy.

Some of the man objectives of community services include:

• Aged care service which works in promoting the wellbeing of the older people by funding and by delivering care services

The professional practices framework is the conceptual framework that organizes authoritative guidance promulgated by the IIA.

History: Human services are a kind of profession that has been introduced in response to the direction of human needs in the year 1960s. Human services provides assistance for the clients within their communities (Hall & Christian, 2017) The professionals of human services encourag3e different unique values and various characteristics of human services. The fundamental values in this kind of profession consists of respecting the dignity and the welfare of people. It also includes advocating of social justice with genuineness and honesty. Historical knowledge plays a significant role for the development of social work identity. However, there is a very little analysis on the historical literature on both social work and workers in Australia.   It can be said that history holds a special position in both Australian social work and social policy. Social work has its roots in the attempts of society at a large in order to deal with the problem of inequality and poverty. It is also some way or the other linked to the charity work (Downes & Marchant, 2016). Even before there was a rise of new European states, the church used to provide social service. Back in the 580 AD, the church had a system of circulating consumables to the poor. Also, during the middle ages, the Christian church had a huge influence on the European society.

NGOs and Governmental Agencies providing Social Service in Australia

There is presence of many non-government as well as governmental organization that provides social service in Australia. Some of the examples of NGOs in Australia includes Action for poverty, CARE Australia, CBM Australia, Anglican Overseas Aid, Cufa and Australian Red Cross. Department of social service in Australia is one of the governmental organizations that provide social service (Sheffield, 2015). CARE Australia is an international humanitarian aid which fights global poverty along with empowering women and girls. CBM is also an international Christian development organization in Australia which is devoted in the improvement in the lives of people with disabilities. The Australian Red Cross is one of the leading humanitarian aid and community services charity which is guided by the Fundamental Principles of the International Red Cross.

Professional practise framework.: All the workers who are in the community service regardless of any kind of experience and qualification should meet ethical standards in order to protect the client along with the community and the practitioner. The practise framework which relates to human service includes guidelines which are related to ethical practice, workplace, diversity and professional development. The usage of someone’s knowledge in case of a particular profession is termed as professional practise. The professionals of human service usually promotes the characteristics of human services. Like all other professions in the society, workers in human services also have to follow various guidelines. The practitioner should base his professional practise based on the theory of community work (Bandy, 2016). The community workers are also expected to work by maintaining   the code of ethics and also by agreeing the principles of the worth of individuals. The workers should also understand and act according to the legislation and guidelines that provides confidentiality and privacy.

The workers of the community service also works in the communities which is diverse. He should also demonstrate his professional practice.  

• The professionals of the human service seeks training, education and experience which are significant for ensuring the effectiveness in working with people who are culturally diverse. They also know the scope of their professional knowledge which offer services within their skills.
• The human service professionals also performs research that maintains all ethical principles, scientific rigidity and institutional standards.
• The community workers are the representatives of the community work profession.
• The practitioner is needed to implement the principles of social justice, equity and self-determination in everyday professional practice.
• The workers should also behave in ethical way in all the situation according to the Australian Community Workers Code of Ethics.
• They should also use the skills for the benefits of the service user and the employing organization.
• A community work practitioner are also needed to protect the privacy of user’s by securing the records.

The regulatory framework: The human service workers works within organisational structures which are complex in nature are mostly governed by the legislation. In order to comply with the above guidelines the workers should observe the legislation which impacts the professional practice. They should also work within the legal limitations which revolves around the right to confidentiality.

Skills required by the human service workers.: People who are social workers usually requires a large range client in client e of emotional, cognitive and professional skills (Sheffield, 2015). It is also important for the workers to become a life long learner as it an ethical requirement of professional social worker. Some of the skills that are essential to become a social worker includes

• Listening actively: active listening to what the clients say and also staying engaged in conversation with them in order to understand them well.  When the workers pay attention to what the clients wants to speak, it makes the clients the comfortable and they start trusting them. Sometimes active listening also builds therapeutic alliance.
• Thinking critically:  Most of the clients tries to seek help for the problems they face in many domains of their lives. Therefore, the social workers are needed to think critically and creatively which will make them effectively help their clients.
• Organization: sometimes the social workers also provides management services which includes billing, making phone calls, networking and also continuing collateral relationships.
• The social workers are also needed to essentially to understand the psychology of the people as it is quite difficult to understand the psychology of the humans.
• Empathy: it is very important to understand the clients emotionally, culturally and intellectually in the social work. It is very difficult to help the client without knowing their background and without understanding them. The ability to imagine oneself in a situation of some one else along with feeling what the client can experience is termed as empathy. Naturally empathic are those people who choose to be social workers already.
• Setting up boundaries: it has been found out that many social workers often feel stressed about their works and they are not mentally satisfied in doing their work. Therefore, it is important for them to leave work at the office will definitely make them a happier person (O'Grady, 2014). The workers should set boundaries between them and the clients in order to protect time for self-care and seek support through the family, friends and professional community.
• Inner strength: study shows that the work of the social workers is emotionally challenging. It is very important that the workers take care of their health and also take care of themselves.

It can be said that the community workers association of Australia has done a lot of community service in Australia in the recent decades. However, there is a lot of benefits of the community service which includes psychological benefits, social benefits and cognitive benefits. Therefor, it can be concluded by saying that participating in the community service makes a huge difference to the organization and to the people being served.

References List

Bandy, J. (2016). What is service learning or community engagement. Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University. https://cft. vanderbilt. edu/guides-subpages/teaching-through-community-engagement.

Buff, S. M., Jenkins, K., Kern, D., Worrall, C., Howell, D., Martin, K., ... & Blue, A. (2015). Interprofessional service-learning in a community setting: findings from a pilot study. Journal of interprofessional care, 29(2), 159-161.

Downes, T., & Marchant, T. (2016). The extent and effectiveness of knowledge management in Australian community service organisations. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(1), 49-68.

Hall, M., & Christian, B. (2017). A health-promoting community dental service in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: protocol for the North Richmond model of oral health care. Australian journal of primary health, 23(5), 407-414.

Henderson, A., Pancer, S. M., & Brown, S. D. (2014). Creating effective civic engagement policy for adolescents: Quantitative and qualitative evaluations of compulsory community service. Journal of Adolescent Research, 29(1), 120-154.

Howard, J. (2014). Service-learning research: Foundational issues. In Studying Service-Learning (pp. 15-26). Routledge.

Kiely, R., & Hartman, E. (2015). Introduction: Special section on global service-learning reflexivity in research: Reflecting on the borders and boundaries of the GSL field. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 22(1), 48-52.

O'Grady, C. R. (2014). Integrating service learning and multicultural education: An overview. In Integrating service learning and multicultural education in colleges and universities (pp. 17-36). Routledge.

Sanders, M. J., Van Oss, T., & McGeary, S. (2016). Analyzing reflections in service learning to promote personal growth and community self-efficacy. Journal of Experiential Education, 39(1), 73-88.

Sheffield, E. C. (2015). Toward radicalizing community service learning. Educational Studies, 51(1), 45-56.

Voss, H. C., Mathews, L. R., Fossen, T., Scott, G., & Schaefer, M. (2015). Community–academic partnerships: Developing a service–learning framework. Journal of Professional Nursing, 31(5), 395-401.

Winston, F. (2015). Reflections upon Community Engagement: Service-Learning and Its Effect on Political Participation after College. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 19(1), 79-103.