Fancy A Future-Proof Job All About Helping People?

Passionate about change, diversity and inclusion? Keen for a secure career that makes a difference? Then the human services sector might be for you.

The human services sector is a super-broad coalition of career paths to do with helping people achieve their life and health goals. It includes professionals such as care and support workers, allied health assistants and even community health workers or youth workers. Sounds interesting? Let’s take a look at just exactly how a career in human services is future-proof, and what you’d do as a worker in the sector to make a positive difference to peoples’ lives:

How can a career be future-proof?

One of the things that’s really important about our society is that we place a great deal of importance on making sure that everyone is treated fairly and is taken care of. That can include people from disadvantaged backgrounds, people with disability, veterans, young people and older people as well. What this means is that we have an enormous infrastructure dedicated to providing wellbeing-oriented services to a vast and diverse range of people.

And this infrastructure is growing super-quickly - in fact, human services is the fastest-growing sector in Australia, and currently comprises 14.3% of Australia’s workforce. You’ve probably also heard on the news or in your society and culture class that Australia has an ageing population. This has combined with the fact that a lot of Aussies are reaching retirement age to create a huge vacancy of roles in the human services sector that need to be filled. Joining up with a sector that is actively looking for talented, enthusiastic people like yourself is great because you’re more likely to find a job, and receive loads of career development opportunities so that you stay skilled up and are able to move around within the sector.

How do workers in the human services sector help people?

The human services sector is absolutely massive, so we’d be doing a disservice if we tried to list all the unique ways here. The main thing to think about when it comes to human services roles is that they’re through organisations whose primary purpose is to create positive outcomes for their clients. For some roles, this might include being with a client to help them with their everyday lives and responsibilities, whereas for other roles you may only be interacting with clients to help 1:1 with a specific aspect of their wellbeing.

Jobs in the human services sector are as different as the organisations that deliver services in them. From activities such as providing meals, transportation, household tasks and shopping assistance, to more personal support like administering medication, and helping with showering and personal hygiene. The clients accessing services are also diverse and include adults, young people, kids and families needing support from aged care, disability, early childhood education and care or allied health assistance.

If you’re feeling excited by the idea of a line of work that is rewarding for you as well as your future clients, make sure you check out our new Academy Positive Humanity. It’s your introduction to the wide world of the human services sector, and is jam-packed with useful and practical info to help you get started! Take a look over here.