Organizations: Goal-oriented, deliberately structured activity systems with an identifiable boundary.

Social Services: The work performed by social workers to improve people's health; enhance their quality of life; become more self-sufficient; prevent dependence; strengthen family relationships; and restore individuals, families, groups, and communities to successful functioning.

Human Services: Programs and activities designed to enhance people's development and well-being.

Social Agency: An organization providing social services to a specific client population who experience a defined need.

Organizations as. . . .

machines
organisms
brains
cultures
political systems
psychic prisons
as flux and transformation
as instruments of domination

An enigma is a puzzle, a mystery, or a riddle.
 

Why would Hasenfeld say the human service organizations are an enigma?

One the one hand, they are viewed as

• Symbols of a caring and compassionate society
• Manifestation of a societal obligation to the well-being of all citizens
• Embodiment of commitment to human welfare, trust, and responsiveness to human need

• Wasteful
• Rigid and inflexible
• Fostering dependency
• Obstructive and controlling
• Formidable bureaucracies
• Burdened with incomprehensible rules, regulations, and red tape

• People-sustaining--maintain well-being, prevent deterioration

• People-changing--altering personal attributes, beliefs, and/or behaviors

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