Virtue-led social work practice

The ten biographies presented in this book offer an important opportunity for social work/social welfare/community and social development/human services students, practitioners and educators, and any general reader to look at these professionals’ life stories and some of the virtues we have identified and interpreted from those stories. What is the significance of these biographies? What virtues are demonstrated in their practices? What might we learn from them? Do they have any potential to influence ourselves and our practice? They may or may not be exemplary and we are hesitant to call them so, and we leave it to readers to see what they think. However, the subjects’ lifelong practice stories speak of their practical wisdom, at least to some extent in some respects. While reflecting on these biographies and their virtues, we must pose a crucial question: So what? In this concluding chapter we try to address this question by looking at the possibilities and consequences of virtue-led social work practice, some of the common or core virtues identified in the ten biographies, and the potential for virtue-led social work practice in the future.