Community Resources Handout
Human services professionals working in the community may be expected to develop the skills necessary to engage in outreach, educate community members, assume an advocacy role, and influence policymakers. As a human services professional, connecting clients with appropriate community resources can profoundly impact their health and quality of life. Therefore, you must be aware of the resources in your community, where to refer clients for special help, and what support systems exist in your community. Human service professionals can advocate for disenfranchised clients whose background makes it difficult for them to utilize professional assistance; a community perspective emphasizes social change rather than merely helping people adapt to their circumstances.
Assignment Directions
For this assignment, you will create a one-page community handout that presents information about resources that address the needs of population at risk of adverse experiences in your community. You can use the handout to educate your community, influence policymakers, advocate for additional resources, and even bring it to an interview with a community agency.
Please be sure to address all of the following in your assignment:
Provide a quote that captures the spirit of a community.
Describe the community and provide an overview of its demographic makeup.
This information might be found on the city/town/county website.
Identify a population at-risk within the community that will benefit from the community resource handout (i.e., community members of color, individuals with physical or developmental disabilities, children at low-performing schools, families of incarcerated individuals, etc.).
Examine three reasons this population is considered at-risk (i.e., risk factors may be related to institutional or social conditions within the community, oppression, discrimination, access to care, etc.).
Describe three specific challenges human service professionals may encounter when working with the population at-risk you identified.
Examples include stigma related to the helping process, resistance to receiving outside help, challenges for this population in utilizing professional assistance, lack of trust between the population and helpers, social factors within the community that are barriers to accessing care, and or institutional or social conditions that contribute to the community problems.
Tip: Use the Purdue Global Library and APA in-text citations.
Examine three local community resources available to the population at-risk (i.e., support groups, community health/mental health centers, community service programs, resources that address a particular basic need insecurity, etc.). Please include:
A brief description of the resource (1–2 sentences).
How clients would access the resources.
A link to the resource website.
Using your previous assignments as a guide, analyze three professional skills you possess that will assist you in advocating for the population-at-risk’s needs.