7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Workers
Social Work Today
By Matthew Robb, MSW
Vol. 4 No. 3 p. 24

Social Work Today polled a number of accomplished social workers nationwide in private practices, universities, settlement houses, Native American reservations, and agencies, both public and nonprofit. Stephen R. Covey took 340 pages in his book about highly effective people to detail his vision. Social Work Today’s experts will take just three—with this proviso: no ivory tower jargon; no New Age mumbo jumbo—just time-tested “habits” that will inform the practice of social workers everywhere. Here’s what they said.

Compassion and Self-Care
For 31 years, social worker Mike Jackson, PhD, has worked the projects of south central Los Angeles, lifting eyes and serving as a beacon of hope against a backdrop of gang warfare, intergenerational poverty, and runaway substance abuse.

Says the 54-year-old nonprofit agency CEO and University of Southern California professor, “Compassion is, without a doubt, the bedrock value of social work. It allows us to bridge huge differences in lifestyle and life experience, in beliefs and biases. It drives us to be the helping professionals that we are.” Jackson, a product of an impoverished rural upbringing, notes, “The core values of social work assert that every single person has intrinsic value and worth. We really do feel something inside when we see people less fortunate than us. We feel it in our bones.”

Agreed, says Brother Michael Reis, FSC, MA, MSW, ACSW, LICSW. Reis, executive director of Tides Family Service, Inc.—a nonresidential program for at-risk kids in West Warwick, RI—says his staff’s “starting point” with new clients focuses on this central question: “If I grew up in your family and you grew up in mine, I wonder who would be talking to whom.”

Comments Reis, “That question is a real eye-opener. It lies at the heart of developing a realistic empathy for people. And, it’s just that sense of compassion and dedication that is at the heart of social work that makes you want to get up in the morning and go work with challenging kids. Compassion helps us look at the strengths people bring to us instead of getting into the blame game. If compassion doesn’t define your actions, you as a social worker won’t be effective with a population of abused, drug-dependent, or poor clients.”

Compassion fuels the fire within. Properly leveraged, it can move mountains. Improperly sustained in a hostile environment, it is at risk of flickering out, creating a vacuum for burnout to seep in. The challenge, both men say, is for social workers to honor and nourish their compassion, lest compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization take their toll. “If you don’t temper your compassion with realism and self-care,” Reis says, “you’re going to be dead in this business.”

For Deb Vangeison Svoboda, LSW, projects coordinator for the advocacy-based Women’s Resource Center in Scranton, PA, self-care goes beyond the usual prescription. “I have trouble relating to the typical stress- and time-management framework,” says the social activist and adjunct faculty member at Marywood University. “When I think of self-care, it means self-reflection, loving oneself, and keeping hope alive. You have to believe in yourself, to have hope in what you’re doing.” Self-care, she says, also means being a student of history and understanding the dynamics that bring clients to our doors.

“Because social workers are often witness to great tragedy,” she continues, “it helps to believe that although these tragedies may not end in our lifetimes, they will end someday—and that some of our clients are in some way creating a better life. The idea is that what I’m doing in the here and now translates into hope for other people in their lives.” Connecting the dots, she adds, “To hold onto hope, I also need to believe in something beyond myself.”

If social workers fail to respect their own needs and limitations, she says, “they can just fall in on themselves.” Pausing to reflect, she adds, “Lots of social workers, myself included, want to save the world. But, this drive must be tempered by realism. We need to remind ourselves that long-lasting changes [on the macro level] may require concerted effort over decades, rather than over months or years.”
In short, we need compassion and self-care, but we also need wisdom—and more than just a little courage.

Courage and Wisdom
Speaking from his office in the Navajo Nation, family therapist and Native American B. Carl Duncan, CMSW, shares his thoughts on wisdom. “I find wisdom in formal educational settings, sure, but even more so in my clients,” he says. “Seeking a client’s wisdom is a reflection of the Navajo mind-set. It’s important to have the humility to realize that we don’t know—and never will know—all the answers. Wisdom means asking the right questions, being good listeners, and keeping an open mind.

“In working with Native Americans,” Duncan continues, “I must remember to be open to non-Western spiritualities, realizing that my clients can get answers from their medicine man, Native American church, and relatives. In the Navajo ways, what we strive for is summarized in this phrase: ‘Walk in beauty. Walk in balance. Walk in harmony.’”

Says Pennsylvania social worker Lea Dougherty, LSW, “Life experience is the first wisdom we bring to our profession, providing us with the empathy to understand the trials and tribulations of others.” The community services director of United Neighborhood Centers of Lackawanna County, PA—a settlement house agency—says, “Because social work is an evolving profession, it requires us to be lifelong learners.” Noting that her agency just started a peer-supervision program, she says, “Part of wisdom is knowing that you can have weaknesses and still do a good job. It means getting comfortable with your problem areas, being open to new ideas, and always growing.”

But, it also means recognizing that wisdom is relative, says Keahi Kimo Souza, MSW, tribal social services director for the Pueblo of Zuni in New Mexico.

“Sometimes,” Souza says, “we get into Western vs. traditional cultural clashes down here at the Pueblo. Disagreements erupt in defining solutions to problems. My clients have important myths and legends—not looking at the sky, whistling at night—that other cultures may not even think about. We as social workers must evolve with our populations and the ways they see the world. We must also constantly seek wisdom in ourselves as we help move our clients from a distorted world to one of more clarity. We may believe we’re all-wise,” he says, “but when we’re delving into another world, we need to allow our clients to arrive at their own definition of wisdom.”

While wisdom means choosing battles wisely, it also means knowing that battle is sometimes our only choice. To quote President John F. Kennedy: If not us, who? If not now, when?

On matters of courage, advocate Barbara Inderlin, MSW, LICSW, director of social service programs for St. Francis Chapel and City Ministry Center in Providence, RI, reflects on the current climate, saying, “It takes courage to challenge social and public service institutions to be more responsive to the people we serve. Some of Rhode Island’s best social workers are becoming unplugged from the public sector. Why? Because they feel the system has chewed them up and spit them out. Frankly, I don’t know how we can effectively treat clients if we aren’t willing to get the system to work for them. But, it takes courage and stamina to continue the battle against all the odds.”

In a bureaucratic age that finds social workers warily toeing the line for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and managed behavioral healthcare, Inderlin, president-elect of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), fears we are in danger of becoming compliant paper pushers.

Echoes Jackson, “Martin Luther King, Jr., wasn’t afraid to advocate for social justice and equality. He knew the consequence of taking a stand and speaking out might be death itself. It takes uncommon courage for any social worker to try to change the world, whether it be the broader world or the world that impinges on his or her client.” Jackson’s point is compelling: If King dared to rock the world, social workers must dare as well.

Jackson, an advocate all too familiar with the Bloods and Crips gangs, adds, “We have immense social problems today. We need social workers willing to go the extra mile, to stand the storm. Determination in the face of adversity is essential, but first, you need the courage of your convictions. Courage doesn’t necessarily mean marching on the nation’s capitol, as did [King]. It can also mean acting within your agency at any level.”

Integrity and Boundaries
Beware the slippery slope—and the road paved with good intentions. For, just as social workers can render great help to vulnerable populations, they can also do great harm. Thus, the fifth and sixth “habits”: integrity and boundaries.

Integrity may seem so fundamental to social work as to be self-evident. Sadly, this isn’t always the case. Despite the NASW Code of Ethics speaking vigorously on this core value or “habit,” every year the NASW and its subsidiary, the NASW Insurance Trust, run up against hundreds of social workers whose ethical compasses point in the wrong direction. For some, sanction means a painful recalibration. But, those banished from the profession learn all too late that the code is nonnegotiable, and deviating from the straight and narrow places social workers on a professional collision course.

Integrity is particularly salient to clinicians as they struggle to meet the demands of tight-fisted insurers. Great is the temptation to fudge diagnoses, “finesse” treatment plans, and push the envelope. Says Ray Rother, PhD, a therapist and program supervisor for Catholic Charities-Villa Maria in mid-Maryland, “Even in this era of exclusionary criteria, social workers cannot afford to cross that line.”

Drawing on her feminist roots, Vangeison Svoboda says, “For me, integrity goes beyond the conventional definition. It means believing people are coming from a place of good intent and that I need to commit to a foundation of truth telling, fairness, and justice.” Her bottom line? “Anytime you cross lines in your work relationships—anytime you act dishonestly and provide an unsafe work relationship—it is potentially devastating.”

Case studies of ethical breaches demonstrate one point: Without clear boundaries, bad behavior creeps in. A social worker’s reward system must therefore be internally generated, says Rother. “Social workers must manage their own needs—they must have a sense of coherence so they don’t need client affirmation of their intelligence, lovability, and worthiness. We can get affirmation from the good work we do, in general, but not directly from our clients.”

Says psychoanalytically trained Noreen Keenan, PhD, a therapist in Albany, NY, “Social workers—perhaps more than other helping professionals—have boundary problems. And, the settings in which we work—hospitals, shelters, and agencies—can make it hard to know when to stop. For our own integrity and well-being, we need to have a psychological boundary where we leave things at work.” Keenan says social workers in need should avail themselves of therapy to examine their own issues. But, whether a boundary violation involves inappropriate self-disclosure, physical contact, disclosing home telephone numbers, or discussing cases with friends or relatives, Keenan says the NASW Code of Ethics is clear: “A ‘no’ is a no.”

Comments Rother, “Whatever is happening in the social worker’s life at any point in time—a loss, a health issue, financial problems—might make us vulnerable to requesting that our needs be met inappropriately,” he says. “That’s why self-reflection is so critical. My sense is that all social workers start out with the clear intent of maintaining the highest integrity. But, if our needs go unmanaged and threaten to get in the way, the lines can get blurry. Anytime we don’t feel quite right, that’s the time for supervision or consultation.”

Organization
Social workers often describe it as their Achilles’ heel: getting—and staying—organized. But in data-driven, do-it-now work environments, expert organizational skills can be instrumental to the success of the social worker, agency, and client alike.

As manager of 23 programs—each with its own documentation requirements— Dougherty knows this well. Placed high on her short list? Multitasking and computer proficiency for tracking, generating reports, and maintaining peak productivity. Social workers, she says, have a choice between taming the paper tiger or getting eaten alive by the paper office. “When it’s time for the program director to do a quarterly report and a social worker’s data is a mess,” she says, “it has a domino effect—meaning added stress on the agency, a potential hold on funding dollars, and possible loss of future funding.”

Yet, good organizational skills offer an added bonus. “They are an effective coping mechanism,” Dougherty says. “If I didn’t have good organizational skills, I’d quickly get frustrated and burned out in my job. One way to prevent burnout is to manage your job better.”

Comments Reis, “After years of being a mom-and-pop organization, we recently committed to the Council on Accreditation. It’s frustrating, sure, but it’s also the best thing we ever did.”

Epilogue
While our experts heartily endorse these seven “habits,” they are quick to note that highly effective social work isn’t formulaic. As long as our profession remains more art than science, there are no clear-cut recipes for success. To these seven habits, then, they add teamwork, tenacity, optimism, authenticity, respect, emotional intelligence, savvy networking, shrewd politicking—the list goes on and on.

But on one matter, they unanimously agree: Stephen R. Covey got it wrong when he trumpeted, “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”

Salvation or no, our struggle continues. Never before has the effectiveness of social workers been more critical.

— Matthew Robb, MSW, is a social worker and freelance writer residing in suburban Washington, DC.