This book's multidisciplinary approach to the field of human services gives students an overview of the helping field, of the programs available and the practical skills workers can employ. This provocative text also provides readers with a realistic understanding of how the recent dramatic shifts in social, economic, and political thinking have radically changed the climate in which human services workers operate. Based on the authors' belief that a humanistic perspective combined with a realistic awareness of pressing social problems provides the best foundation for creative and effective helping, the book provides a comprehensive survey of what the human services field has become, what it takes to be a human services worker, and what future pressures the evolving societal realities are likely to place on programs and workers in the field.