Human Services Management

Human Services Management option will prepare students to assume managerial roles in public and nonprofit organizations that are focused on addressing the social, health, and mental health needs of a range of populations, with a particular focus on the needs of immigrant and refugee communities, children youth and families, and the underserved.     

Our interdisciplinary HSM faculty provide a range of academic perspectives from fields including sociology, psychology, public health, and education, and practical real world experiences from human service, advocacy and social policy organizations as consultants, program evaluators, advocates, managers and leaders. Students will gain a myriad of skills to prepare them to lead complex organizations including the importance of values, vision and morale as a manager, team building and decision making, the role of budgets, information and structure, and the strategies for public communication and crisis management.  Specifically, our Human Service Management student coursework emphasizes:

  • Capacities to manage and develop practices that promote interpersonal diversity, equity and inclusion among teams and within diverse groups that operate within organizational settings.
  • Understandings of systemic structural and cultural factors that contribute to inequalities based on class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality and disabilities, with attention to the intersectionality among these socially constructed status hierarchies.
  • Knowledge of persistent and structural inequalities in education, housing, health and healthcare access, workforce, and human services
  • Practical and applied policy development skills and opportunities to apply these to practice
  • Strategies for boosting motivation and morale among diverse teams
  • Critical and creative approaches to solving management problems
  • Understanding the nature and importance of organizational culture

Our alumni have gone on to advance careers in:

  • Local municipal city and town governments
  • State and federal agencies including the EPA, Department of Mental Health, and others
  • Statewide and local non-profit organizations to support children, youth and families.

Return to the MPA page or find the degree pathway for the concentration in Human Services Management.