husITa (Human Services Information Technology Association) is an international virtual associationand a registered US non-profit organizationestablished with the mission of promoting the ethical and effective use of information technology in the human services. The main focus of husITa, and the claim to expertise of its associates, is situated at the intersection of three core domains: information technology, human services, and social development. husITa pursues its mission through international conferences, publications and research dissemination directed at technology applications and innovations that promote social well-being.
For much of its early history husITa operated as an informal international network of human service academics and practitioners. One of the outcomes of its first international conferencehusITa1 held in 1987 in Birmingham, Englandwas the establishment of a working group to determine the feasibility of an international body 'to highlight the importance of human service computing, to guide developments, and to foster international co-operation'.
The working group was composed of Hein de Graaf (Netherlands), Walter LaMendola (US), Dick Schoech (US), and Stuart Toole (UK). Initial projects identified by the working group included the development of research agendas, position papers, repositories of information, and promoting a second husITa conference in 1989. Bryan Glastonbury was later added to the group as secretary. The working group met in Colorado, Denver for three days in May 1988 and published a report on the issues that a husITa international organization would need to address.
Although the 1988 Denver meeting agreed its objectives, husITa wasn't formally established as an organization for another twelve years. The structure of the formal organization was later agreed to at Denver in 2000. The founding members at the Denver 2000 meeting were: Hein de Graaf, Walter LaMendola, Rob MacFadden, Jo Ann Regan, Jackie Rafferty, Jan Steyaert, Dick Schoech, Stuart Toole, and Victor Savtschenko.
In Colorado, local and state Human Service Departments have been providing adequate, quality, client care since the 1950s, with innovations in service programs, resources, and technology, the consistency and type of care is ever changing. In recent years, there has been a substantial shortage of human service programs as well as service professionals within small, rural towns within Colorado. These obstacles seem to be caused by a steadily increasing population of relocating residents, with El Paso County, Colorado (80 miles South of Denver), nearing the largest county population growth in the state of Colorado with roughly 12,526 new residents in the year 2017 alone. By expanding the use of technology to improve the way information and resources are both shared and managed, the barriers of providing accessible, cost effective, services directly and indirectly can be overcome.
Objectives
husITa's objectives (agreed by the 1988 Denver working group) are to: Facilitate international cooperation in human service technology. Collect and disseminate information on human service technology, including tackling the problems of language translation. Provide technical assistance in human service technology and encourage the involvement of countries with a less developed human service IT infrastructure. Stimulate international discussion on key human service technology issues and encourage position papers in areas such as security/privacy/confidentiality, curriculum content and teaching methods, and ethical issues in systems/software development and use. Encourage publications about human service information technology. Encourage international research efforts. Encourage standards for making human service technology culturally independent.