Challenges of Being an Advocate
Challenges of Being an Advocate and Mediator
Maria Suter
BSHS 441: Advocacy and Mediation
August 13, 2012
Andrea Winston
Challenges of Being an Advocate and Mediator
The human services field has been adding to its long list of services over the last few years and with the services that it has added include the advocate and the mediator. Human Services’ is a field that does exactly that, it provides the communities with different services that may be needed by the people of the community. In the following paper the field of human services and the positions of both the advocate and the mediator will be discussed. Along with the roles being discussed the responsibilities including the ethical, moral, and legal challenges of these positions will also be discussed.
Advocacy in the Human Services Field
Advocacy is when a person or a group of persons is responsible for speaking on another’s behalf. This was commonly found in business disagreements and marriage issues. Over the years however advocacy has been included in the human services field to cover victims of crimes, people with disabilities, and even into the metal heath facilities for people with serious mental health issues. Advocacy is tricky in some ways because you are on one specific side and there are some situations within the field that you do not have much of a choice as to what you can and cannot advocate. One example of this would be that of a sex offender that has been released from prison. This person has followed all of the rules and has also registered through the appropriate agencies. This person is walking down the street of their neighborhood and is assaulted simply because they were a sex offender. A victim’s advocate has the legal responsibility as well as an ethical one to represent this person just as if they were a victim without a past. Advocating is sometimes hard but there are many tools that will assist the advocate with what they need in order to be effective in
Maria Suter
BSHS 441: Advocacy and Mediation
August 13, 2012
Andrea Winston
Challenges of Being an Advocate and Mediator
The human services field has been adding to its long list of services over the last few years and with the services that it has added include the advocate and the mediator. Human Services’ is a field that does exactly that, it provides the communities with different services that may be needed by the people of the community. In the following paper the field of human services and the positions of both the advocate and the mediator will be discussed. Along with the roles being discussed the responsibilities including the ethical, moral, and legal challenges of these positions will also be discussed.
Advocacy in the Human Services Field
Advocacy is when a person or a group of persons is responsible for speaking on another’s behalf. This was commonly found in business disagreements and marriage issues. Over the years however advocacy has been included in the human services field to cover victims of crimes, people with disabilities, and even into the metal heath facilities for people with serious mental health issues. Advocacy is tricky in some ways because you are on one specific side and there are some situations within the field that you do not have much of a choice as to what you can and cannot advocate. One example of this would be that of a sex offender that has been released from prison. This person has followed all of the rules and has also registered through the appropriate agencies. This person is walking down the street of their neighborhood and is assaulted simply because they were a sex offender. A victim’s advocate has the legal responsibility as well as an ethical one to represent this person just as if they were a victim without a past. Advocating is sometimes hard but there are many tools that will assist the advocate with what they need in order to be effective in