Charting a Course for the Future
To understand the human services profession, it is important to be able to access, not only the historical information about the field, but also current and future developments. To that end, it is essential to know how to locate current and future legislation that may affect service delivery.
For that reason, this week you will spend some time researching the pending legislation that may affect your future career.
To begin, locate the home page of your local state legislature. If you are unable to locate the legislative home page for your state, you may visit the home page of the United States House of Representatives at www.house.gov. Spend some time watching the proceedings if it is currently in session.
Locate the bills pending before the legislative body you are viewing. For the US House of Representatives, this is located on the right hand side of your screen under "Bills and Reports" but it should be easy to locate for your state legislature as well.
Select one of the pending bills about which to write in your post.
The bill you choose should relate to the human needs you discussed last week and/or the human services profession.
Respond to the following questions regarding this bill:
· State the name of the bill you have chosen and describe what it hopes to accomplish.
· Make an argument for the passage of this legislation, i.e. Who would it help? Why is it important?
· Now make the opposite argument. Why should it not be passed? What are some of the issues with this bill as it is written?
· Relate this bill to the historical development of the human services profession. In what ways would passage of this bill continue the work that was started by early human service professionals?
Discuss how members of the human service profession might impact the passage of this bill.