Health and Human Services Professional Development

Human Service Professionals Author: Mikki Sherwood I teach a course for graduate students that is called “Current Issues and Trends in Family & Consumer Sciences.”  At the beginning of each semester I teach about the history of FCS. I have sections about the scientific roots of FCS, the  early leaders  of the discipline, and how FCS has evolved in more than 100 years.  I also cover the basic philosophy of FCS, explain the importance of the integrative nature of the discipline, and describe  Bronfenbrenner’s Systems Theory  in detail. My students all ask me why I think they need to have this information. I tell them to consider the fact that at some point they will be in the job market, in competition with many other people. They will need to be able to explain their unique attributes to a potential employer. One of the unique attributes of someone that studied FCS is that he or she has the ability to look at various aspects of the functioning of...