The experience of service provisioning for homeless pregnant women

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to better understand the experience of provisioning services for women who experience homelessness while being pregnant from both service providers' as well as homeless pregnant women's perspectives. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted 14 qualitative interviews with people representing multiple phases of the service provisioning process from initial intake to post-natal care. By analyzing the data utilizing an inductive thematic coding process, numerous challenges and successful operations were uncovered. Challenges primarily revolved around the themes of lack of resources, collaboration, and communication. The most effective systems were run by large government organizations but did not cater to individualized needs like the smaller, niche organizations did. Findings provide broad understandings of the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem as presented in the conceptual framework and are based on the qualitative insights into the challenges service providers and homeless, pregnant women face while accessing services. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)