Human services refers to a variety of delivery systems such as social welfare services, education, mental health services, and other forms of healthcare. Human services professionals may provide services directly to clients or help clients access services. Human services professionals also manage agencies that provide these services. And because of their engagement with human conditions, they are involved in policy development and advocacy. The academic discipline of human services educates these professionals at the associate, bachelor's, and graduate levels and studies how delivery systems and public policies affect service users.

Human services has its roots in charitable activities of religious and civic organizations. In the nineteenth century these services baecame institutionalized as independent secular nonprofit organizations. However, the academic discipline of human services did not start until the 1960s. At that time, a group of college academics started the new human services movement and began to promote the adoption of a new ideology about human service delivery and professionalism among traditional helping disciplines. The movement's major goal was to make service delivery more efficient, effective, and humane. The other goals dealt with the reeducation of traditional helping professionals to have a greater appreciation of the individual as a whole person and to be accountable to the communities they serve. Furthermore, professionals would learn to take responsibility at all levels of government, use systems approaches to consider human problems, and be involved in progressive social change.

Animalia

Humans (known taxonomically as Homo sapiens,Latin for "wise man" or "knowing man") are the only living species in the Homo genus. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

Humans have a highly developed brain and are capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other living species on Earth. Other higher-level thought processes of humans, such as self-awareness, rationality, and sapience, are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a "person".

Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks, to nations. Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society. With individuals widespread in every continent except Antarctica, humans are a cosmopolitan species. As of November 2011^[update], the human population was estimated by the United Nations Population Division to be about 7 billion, and by the United States Census Bureau to be about 6.97 billion.