Premium
Characteristics and consequences of help‐giving practices in contrasting human services programs
Author(s) -
Trivette Carol M.,
Dunst Carl J.,
Hamby Deborah
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/bf02510402
Subject(s) - health psychology , public health , human services , psychology , environmental health , social psychology , political science , medicine , nursing , law
Relationships between human services program models and help‐giving practices, and between both program models and help‐giving practices and help‐seeker control appraisals were examined in a study of 107 low socioeconomic background families. Three kinds of human services agencies were included in the study, each of which differed in terms of their implicit and explicit assumptions about the families they served and the roles professionals and families played as part of helping relationships. Results support the hypotheses that (a) a program philosophy that was family centered would be associated with more empowering help‐giving practices compared to more professionally centered philosophies and (b) a family‐centered program philosophy and empowering help‐giving practices would be related to an enhanced sense of personal control over needed supports and resources from a target help‐giver.