Social Service Practitioners’ Perceptions of Factors Facilitating Effective Service Delivery in Johannesburg Shelters, South Africa

As many people experience homelessness across the globe, most of the literature exploring the phenomenon has focused on its causes and effects, centralizing its victims. Thus, there has been a lack of research focusing on the experiences of service providers in the homelessness sector to understand the conditions affecting service delivery. Social services practitioners working in homeless shelters operate in high-pressure environments that require holistic support systems and clear operational frameworks. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, this study explores social services practitioners’ perceptions of the factors that facilitate effective service provision for people experiencing homelessness. The study adopted a qualitative case study design, and purposive sampling was used to recruit the twelve social services practitioners from two shelters in the Johannesburg metropolitan area. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, leading to three major themes: (1) peer support and supervisory support in social services teams, (2) collaboration partnerships with key stakeholders in the provision of essential services, and (3) policies, documents, and procedures guiding service delivery by social services. Based on these findings, the recommendations are that management within shelters must support staff with debriefing, supervision, and training workshops to bolster their service delivery, and future research projects must explore the effectiveness of the facilitating factors in ensuring effective service delivery.