THE EIGHT HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY SOCIAL WORKERS: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

Much has changed in the 10 years since the publication of the White Paper for Social Welfare in February 1997. The boundaries of knowledge and expertise on the delivery of developmental social work services have been expanded and the general field of social development has been subjected to intense analysis and continual reconceptualisation. Perhaps the time has come for the social work fraternity to start asking what has been learnt in the past decade. It is especially pertinent to know which factors determine success and failure in developmental social work in general and community work in particular and what makes some community social workers so effective while others fail. The latter half of this question prompted a research project in which Stephen R. Covey’s (1989) basic approach in determining “The 7 habits of highly effective people” was used to ascertain the equivalent habits of highly effective community social workers. The procedure that was followed and the results that were achieved will be covered in this article.