Human Services Case Study

The Smith family is in the same situation as many other families that live in the United States. A young single mother is trying to raise two children by herself with no income. Lucky for them, there are several government funded programs that are there to help them to form a better life. However, there are certain requirements for several of the programs. The Smith family should meet most of those requirements. They have until the end of the month before all their resources are cut off.

Working as part of the organization, Caroline should be very well aware that with the original funding, many people will not be able to live above the poverty line. More, although the director had confronted that they were doing this unethical practice, it was always an unwritten policy of the organization. Meaning that even though everyone was practicing under such principle, but it was never required or asked from the organization. Employees were just doing what they believed was right for their clients. At last, it was the ill-conceived goal of state agency that pressure the employees to do such an unethical behavior. If there were enough funds given to their clients under the regular circumstances, there will never be a need for the organization to exaggerate conditions in order to secure funds for their clients.

With occupation and education, the client’s dad has a master’s in business and works for Gateway computers. The client’s mom has a degree in psychology and is a housewife, and the younger brother has degree from UCSD for management science and economics and works at Boeing. As for Mrs. P, the client works as a teacher, having earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of California, Riverside, and Mr. P works as a neuro-surgeon, with a bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology and in computer engineering, and masters in computer engineering. Receiving no financial assistance, the client seemed satisfied in the current socioeconomic class of upper middle class because there are no plans of changing job. Currently owning a home with 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, dining room, loft, and patio, the living arrangements for Mrs. P appear sufficient for a future family to live in.

In a way, one could view this as a way that the system is being cheated. According to Malcolm Wiener, professor of Social Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the nation's 3.7 million welfare families confront an urgent problem: they do not get enough money from welfare to pay their bills. Nor can most single mothers earn enough to cover their expenses. The only way most welfare recipients can keep their families together is to combine work and welfare. Yet if they report that they are working, the welfare department will soon reduce their checks by almost the full amount of their earnings, leaving them as desperate as before. The only way most recipients can make ends meet, therefore, is to supplement their welfare checks without telling the welfare department that they are working.

Hernandez completed an office visit to recertify for SNAP benefits for herself and two children. During the visit, Ms. Eastmond completed a Work Number search using Ms. Hernandez’s name and social security number. Upon review of the inquiry, employment and earnings were verified for Ms. Hernandez for 7-Eleven from March 28, 2012 through August 2, 2013. It was determined that she received wages on August 1, 2013 in the amount of $490.73, and on August 8, 2013 in the amount of $357.49. Her rate of pay was $9.50 per hour and her gross income was $16,155.73 in 2012, and $14,411.85 in 2013. Ms. Hernandez’s Medicaid benefit also became effective on August 1, 2013 and extended through July 31, 2014. (See Exhibit

Paycheck to Paycheck; the life and times of Katrina Gilbert is a very touching story. It’s about a young lady who is newly divorced with three children and at the of nineteen Katrina was diagnosed with Graves Disease. Katrina is now a single parent providing for three children all under the age of ten. She is working as a CNA and is paid $9.40 hourly, this hardly enough to pay her monthly incomes. Her bills consist of child care, rent, medical, phone, water, electrical and put food on the table. On top of that, she gives her ex-husband money for gas to see his own kids.

In 2008 total money spent on welfare was equally about $16,800 for each person in poverty, equal to about $50,000 for a family of three below the poverty line. Now the author explains in his opinion Americans can do a better job with the money we already spend, while saving the government (ultimately saving us the taxpayers) money. His ideas is similar to the block grant reforms utilized in the 1990s, where welfare recipients gained nearly 25% more income through actually working, while the government reduced welfare recipients and benefits saving the taxpayers 50% over ten years(Ferrara, 2014).

I called the constituent and she complained about the DHS "is ripping off her SNAP for years." She know other people that make more money that she does and is receiving a lot more benefits.

Edin and Lein wanted to discover the surviving strategies of single mothers who are on welfare or work on a low-waged job. They argue “neither welfare nor low wage work gives single mothers enough income to meet their families’ expenses” (253). To find out the set of survival strategies of single mothers to make ends meet Edin and Lein interviewed 379 low income single mothers. They chose their interviewees from different cities, different aged group, and different ethnic background. Most mothers who are on welfare wanted to find a job and be out of the welfare but the primary problem that single mothers face was that “family economics”. With the minimum wage income it was impossible for the single mothers to bring the ends meet. Neither working nor being on welfare was enough to survive therefore mothers who are on welfare supported their budget by generating substantial supplementary income. Edin and Lein states that “welfare recipients generated extra income by working at side jobs, obtaining cash from network members, community groups and local charities”. They also get cash help from the family members, child’s fathers, and from a boyfriend. Because they were afraid to lose welfare benefits they did not tell anyone about the extra income they have. To survive they needed both the welfare benefits and the extra income. It was very difficult to establish a trust with the interviewees in the beginning because they were afraid if they talk about it they might lose the

Today Miss Orbach had to fill Social Security documents to see if any of her children qualify for Social Security cash benefits. She is trying to add to her income, because she thinks what she has is not enough. I explain to her she has to learn to manage with the income she has. Without the ability to manage her finances, no amount of income will help. We went over her income before and she had just enough to get by. This pass month she chooses to get her car fixed, which took most of her income. On the original expense we add in the cost of gas and insurance, but she does not have any savings. By getting the car fix it made a budget tight for the month. She could not afford to pay for such big expanses. I allowed her the time to fill out

But the programs were clearly not enough to get Michelle up on her feet. Michelle worked as a caregiver in the past and now that she tries to find a job through the government, has been a challenging journey. Michelle can’t get a job even though the government has spent $2,500 to train her as a nursing assistant, something she has dreamed of doing. A common problem low income families run into that is a major factor in getting a job is transportation (Abramovitz). Last month Michelle’s car was totalled by someone who was backing out of a driveway, which consequently leaves her with no way to get back and forth to work everyday. Mass transit is pretty much non-existent in the location she lives in. All Michelle wants to do is see the light again and just provide some sort of comfort for her kids. She knows that if she starts working and making money, benefits like food stamps will be cut or totally removed. Within this month, the family’s food stamps has drastically dropped from $650 to $250 a month because her boyfriend Mike began to work at a local fast food joint

Barbara is from New York, she was working as a counselor in a juvenile detention center. She is raising five children on her own, working full time, and putting herself through school so she can have a more stable living environment for her family and herself. She makes $8.25 an hour at the juvenile detention center, she makes about $900 every two weeks, and lives off of government aid. Barbara gets a raise to $11 an hour, but gets her government funding taken away; it includes medicaid, food stamps, and her housing assistance. Barbara finally finishes college and gets her associates degree which leads her to becoming a recreational therapist that pays $15 an hour with a 90 day review that includes a raise. Mary is from New Jersey, she was working as a

Wilson gives an example of a mother in a “new poverty neighborhood” that was on welfare even though she wanted to be employed, and she says that, while she was working, she was making only $7 an hour. Since she couldn’t pay the babysitter or get medical insurance for her children, she applied for public aid, and she could not even find a job that her benefits.

The Human Services Organization I analyzed is New Beginnings. New Beginnings is an agency that provides sexual assault support services in Daviess, Hancock, Henderson, McLean, Ohio, Union, and Webster counties. The clients of this organization have all been affected by sexual assault or child sexual abuse. Issues within clients are best described as acute trauma responses or chronic trauma, such as sexual difficulties or loss of trust. In order to analyze this agency as efficiently as possible, I interviewed Terri Crowe, the Advocacy Coordinator, from New Beginnings. Terri was able to provide very useful information regarding this organization and how it ticks. Although New Beginnings provides services to seven different counties, there are

Jean is a 51 year old certified nursing assistant who is a single mother also. She has three kids but had to take in two more because of the children’s living conditions and two more because of her daughters kids. She protests that even after 14 years of working at the same place she still makes only $11 an hour. The annual salary that a nursing assistant may get is $26,590, which could or couldn’t include benefits. Even though Jean is helping people and needs a ton of training in this area, she still makes less than a garbage worker makes. Even with the low paying, the job becomes very depressing because the workers are repeatedly working long hours doing the same thing and it soon becomes depressing working on