Thematic Analysis of Informal Case Management Skill Building Necessary to Navigate the Homeless Services System

Richard Southee • December 22, 2025

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Case Management Skill Building necessary to Navigate the Homeless Services System

Recently Central Arizona Shelter Services was featured in an research article published in Professional Case Management, a journal that publishes research on case management in health and human services. The article was a joint project between Richard Southee (Director of Compliance & Continuous Improvement, PhD Global Health) Johanna Jorgenson (Senior Haven Manager, MSW) and Cindi SturtzSreetharan (President’s Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change). The article titled Thematic Analysis of Informal Case Management Skill Building Necessary to Navigate the Homeless Services System explores soft skills used by case managers to generate success when working in homeless services. The project was done at CASS and leveraged our own case manager’s expertise to identify four areas that they found they were often leaning on when working with their clients. These four areas were (a) understanding special/complex populations, (b) informal skills, (c) system navigation and (d) system orientation.


This study was an important diversion from popular literature on the topic which focuses on hard skills like crisis de-escalation and case management planning as desirable skills in new case managers, and instead highlights soft skills that can be gained in other professional environments but lend towards success in case management nonetheless. Importantly, Dr. Southee and his peers present the argument that when hiring for new case managers, identifying people that indicate having the identified soft skills may be stronger candidates for positions than conventional requirements around prior experience may suggest. Importantly, they suggest that hard skills like those typically sought after are easier to build through training and employee onboarding than the soft skills identified in the study that are built experientially and emphasizing them in the interviewing process may provide more long-term employee success and retention.


As the human and homeless services industry continues to struggle with high turn-over rates that leave organizations wanting qualified applicants, this study sheds a light on a new set of qualifications that can be used for screening. As CASS continues to work towards becoming a stronger organization and building expertise in our community, we look forward to continuing to work on projects like this that can help make ourselves and all providers in our community better.


If you have questions about the article or are interested in learning more please contact Dr. Richard Southee at rsouthee@cassaz.org


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About CASS:

Founded in 1984, CASS is the largest and longest serving homeless emergency shelter provider in Arizona. Our adult and family shelters, as well as our temporary senior shelter operate at full capacity, 365 days of the year. CASS’ provides shelter, case management and housing support to a truly vulnerable community, from around the state and beyond.

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