Sometimes people only need advice to help them with their problems. It is not necessary to take any other action. For example, someone comes to you for help with a grant-related problem. You can then advise them to go to the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) for assistance.

As far as possible you should encourage people to try and sort out their problems on their own. Often this means that you give a person some advice and tell them to come back to you if they haven’t managed to sort it out. This makes people less dependent on you to solve their problems and it encourages them to take responsibility for dealing with their own problems.

Always make careful notes of the advice you give so that if the person comes back to you later, you can ask them whether they did as you advised.