Brief History of Human Service Education
"During the late 1950s and 1960s, there were dramatic changes in the area of helping those in need. Populations like the poor, the unemployed, children in need, the elderly, the disabled, the substance abuser and others began to be recognized as needing social and rehabilitation services. About this time, new legislation mandated that those formerly served in state mental hospitals would now be deinstitutionalized and would henceforth be seen in the communities in which they lived. It was not long before it became obvious that the traditional human resources would not meet the needs of the helping services being offered.

The community based mental health system necessitated that professionals be trained in a different manner. While the provision of mental health services was undergoing these changes, the civil rights movement brought attention to social justice and equity issues. Consumers of social services became more involved in advocating for themselves and in creating services that would meet their own needs. Thus "grass roots" (started by the clients) level activism created opportunities for new approaches to human services. Amidst all these changes, a new class of workers was born.
Originally called paraprofessionals, these workers were often those who had been served by the helping system and had a better sense of the qualities and skills that were important for helpers to possess. Thus, what had begun as an informal orientation to helping would soon become formalized as competency based mental health/human services training.
To meet the demand for and the availability of educational programs based on the development of competencies, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1956, provided the resources to establish the first associate degree program in mental health at Purdue University. This would