Program Description/Overview

The Human Services (HUS) Program offers a career-track degree that is designed to prepare students for entry-level employment within a variety of helping professions. Helping professions include working in the fields of addiction, mental health, developmental disabilities, gerontology, adolescents and youth services, social services, and community services.

This curriculum provides an academic and experiential foundation for skills necessary for professionals in a variety of human services careers. Core studies provide the student with opportunity to practice an essential set of generalist helping skills. Areas of focus include: knowledge and practice of empathic listening, client interviewing and problem-solving, advocating for clients within organizational structure, responding to crisis, and attending to multicultural perspectives in case management. In their final semester, students enroll in a sixteen-hour a week internship that serves as a capstone to their studies. Internships in early childhood, family assistance, chemical dependency intervention, and gerontology are just a few of the areas where HUS students have successfully demonstrated professional skill. The program prepares students for transfer to certain four year institutions.