The Concept of the Human Service Organization:

Abstract

The expression "human service organization" is explored in reference to an organization's essential societal functions, the development of HSOs as a growing movement, their special functional attributes or domains, the workplace of particular kinds of personnel, and the federal umbrella organization approach to service planning and delivery. The author discusses the utility of HSO as a concept and speculates as to why social work finds it agreeable; and he comments on the ways in which it remains confusing and illusory when used as an analytic construct rather than as the European equivalent of "the social services."