Problem:
Gharabaghi and Anderson-Nathe (2017) highlight how human services often frame young people as problem generators and researchers as problem solvers. This viewpoint exposes a significant power imbalance, in which professionals are seen as experts and service users are merely problems to be fixed. Rather than being neutral, this deficit-based approach is political; it emphasizes efficiency, measurable results, and standardized evidence-based solutions that produce predictable outcomes, often just meeting minimal standards. Consequently, it maintains an expert-led system that generates knowledge about clients instead of with them, valuing research fidelity over genuine, responsive practice. As a result, young people are seen as objects of intervention rather than active participants, with their self-determination rarely emphasized (Gharabaghi & Anderson-Nathe, 2017). Although professionals may claim to adopt strengths-based methods, these systems often still rely on deficit thinking, creating gaps that hinder collaboration, silence client voices, and restrict meaningful involvement. This situation presents challenges for HSPPs, including balancing agency expectations with person-centered care, feeling pressured to focus on compliance and measurable results rather than relationship-building, and having limited opportunities to involve service users as true partners in the helping process (Bowers et al., 1999). This can make it difficult for HSPPs to fully center client strengths. Need Assignment Help?