Shluhot was founded in 1948 by former members of the Bnei Akiva Zionist youth movement on the land that had belonged to the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Ashrafiyya. Initially, a temporary joint camp was set up with a group from the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. Shortly thereafter, when each group received land to build separate kibbutzim, the secular members of the group formed the adjacent kibbutz of Reshafim. The kibbutz is one of four religious kibbutzim that are located in a cluster south of Beit She'an stretching from Shluhot at the base of Mount Gilboa through Ein HaNatziv and Sde Eliyahu until Tirat Zvi adjacent to the Jordan River.