Running an effective Day Service

This page contains general information about the role of Day Services in ending homelessness as well as links to useful guidance, webinars and relevant training.

You can view Homeless Link's Day Service Principles on how to run an excellent Day Service as well as the evidence that this approach is effective. These were co-created with services across England and include detailed information

Read also our pages on improving Day Service buildings and building physical and psychological safety.

The term "Day Services" is used here as an umbrella term for services that offer support to people experiencing homelessness in a non-residential space which will include Day Centres, Resource Centres, Hubs, Advice Centres and many other models including a broad range of services from small drop-ins providing food and clothes to structured services delivering targeted advice and learning activities.

What's on this page

• The role and scope of Day Services
• What is the purpose of a Day Service?
• Approach, ethos and principles
• Trauma-informed Day Services including being strengths-based and co-production
• Running an effective Day Service
• Funding and fundraising
• Managing data and evidencing impact
• Supporting and managing staff
• Partnership working

The role and scope of Day Services

The information in this section has been taken from Homeless Link's most recent Annual Review of Support for Single Homeless People.

Day Services are at the forefront of the response to homelessness and are often the first port of call for people experiencing rough sleeping and other forms of homelessness. In England in 2024, there were around 173 Day Services with approximately 130,349 people accessing Day Services each year.

Level of provision

Information from Homeless Link’s 2024 review of services suggests that Day Service provision corresponds roughly to the levels of rough sleeping in each region although in recent years capacity has not kept pace with the rise in rough sleeping, particularly in East Midlands and London.

Funding

60% of Day Services are funded primarily from individual donors, grants and fundraising activities. Just 26% of services receive their main source of income from commissions from the Local Authority and only 39% overall receive any local authority contracts or commissions. This can mean that many Day Services operate more independently of the Local Authority than other homelessness service providers. This can allow freedom to develop innovative responses to changing local need and to work with diverse groups of people.

However, this can also lead to financial instability with nearly half of all Day Services(46%) reporting that increased financial pressures mean that their organisation risks service closures. Moreover, over a fifth of Day Services report making redundancies as a result of increased financial pressures.

What is the purpose of a Day Service? 

Homeless Link established a co-creation group in 2025 consisting of over 30 different services. Reflections from this co-creation group on the overall purpose(s) of Day Services are summarised in this section.

Excellent Day Services are places of connection, belonging and progression. These core concepts are central to the role that Day Services play.

The co-creation group identified an overarching purpose of Day Services as supporting people on their journey out of homelessness. However, the group highlighted that as they offer such a broad range of support, Day Services may have several related purposes.

A central purpose of Day Services is provision of a safe, welcoming space for people experiencing homelessness who feel isolated and disconnected. Day Services can provide a non-judgmental space where people can feel a sense of belonging, where their voices are heard and crucially, where they are viewed holistically as individuals. This creates an environment where people feel comfortable enough to engage with the support available and is an essential first step to moving beyond past trauma.

It is important to recognise that whilst Day Services can and often do prevent crisis, in many cases people arrive already in crisis and the service works to alleviate and resolve it as much as possible.

A further purpose of Day Services is to support progression both through resolving housing and other challenges and through building confidence and self-efficacy.

Day Services provide welfare and support on a broad range of issues from housing to health to meaningful activity and employment, sometimes providing a simple but essential hand to hold. This involves connecting people to other vital services, which has variously been described as being a ‘bridge’ or a ‘hub’ or a ‘wheel and spoke’. Key to this is facilitating access to agencies and preventing people from being passed ‘from pillar to post’. This also gives Day Services the ability to improve communication across sectors more broadly through developing understanding and strong working relationships with a range of external partners.

In addition, Day Services typically support personal progression and growth in several different ways from valuing and encouraging participation to offering leisure and learning activities that build on personal strengths, self-esteem and self-efficacy. In this way they empower people to move beyond homelessness towards positive futures.

The strategic value of Day Services

Day Services have key strategic value within homelessness provision.

• Engagement – they are able to reach and engage with a wide range of people and are:
  • often centrally located and visible
  • well known
  • typically open access or low threshold
  • open at accessible times
• Hub/Partnerships – Day Services play a key role in bringing together agencies and services to deliver in a one-stop-shop style support approach to people who are otherwise excluded from access. In doing so, they:
  • provide referrals and signposting
  • offer (often free) spaces for other agencies to meet people
  • gather a mix of agencies in one location
  • enable services to be delivered in a ‘safe’ space and improve engagement
• Crisis support – Day Services are uniquely positioned to deliver crisis support and were often established with this in mind. They provide crisis intervention through:
  • meeting basic needs, and provision of essential items
  • referrals to essential housing and agencies
  • timely interventions with people who are otherwise unable to engage with services
  • emergency provision of housing and SWEP
• Community, belonging and progression – Day Services provide a sense of connection for people who often feel isolated and excluded and they:
  • bring people together to form connections and reduce isolation
  • build agency through increasing self-esteem
  • support progression and development

Approach, ethos and principles

Each service should work according to their organisation’s overall mission and values. Having a set of guiding principles is important and developing a theory of change can be a useful way of ensuring that the activities offered work towards your overall goal.

Homeless Link have published a set of Principles for Day Services that set out how to operate effectively. These principles were co-created with 30 different services from all regions of England as well as experts by experience and were developed in partnership with Expert Link and Housing Justice.

The headline principles can be seen in the graphic below and there is detailed information on the Day Service Principles Page.

Trauma-informed Day Services

The unique position of Day Services provides key opportunities for trauma-informed working. Day Services often provide practical supportive services creating opportunities for more informal interactions. This can enable staff to develop trusting relationships over time. Conversely as with many services supporting people with a mixture of needs, Day Services can experience disruptions that make the space feel unsafe for both staff and attendees.

Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a relationship-based approach which can be adopted by organisations to improve awareness of trauma and its impact, to ensure that the services offer effective support and, above all, that they do not re-traumatise those accessing or working in services. This is an approach that can be applied in all settings, including Day Services.

Many people experiencing homelessness have also experienced trauma in their past. In addition, homelessness is a traumatic event in itself and exposes people to further risk of harm. Research commissioned by Oasis Community Housing found that 92% of people experiencing homelessness had experienced trauma, and almost two-thirds of respondents reported experiencing four or more traumatic experiences, or trauma over a prolonged period.

All services need to ensure they have a clear understanding of the impact of trauma, how to adapt their approach to take account of it and how to promote wellbeing in the people accessing their services.

Homeless Link have developed a Framework for applying TIC which involves 3 key steps.

Step 1: Trauma awareness

There are many psychological impacts of trauma, which affect responses to situations. Ultimately, for someone who has experienced trauma, perceptions of safety and control, the ability to regulate their emotions and capacity for forming relationships may be hugely impacted.

People working within the homelessness sector can also be impacted both from hearing about the trauma of others and by experiences that they may have had in their own lives.

A Day Service that is trauma aware, realises the prevalence of trauma and the impact this will have on the lives of people experiencing homelessness as well as on staff and volunteers.

Step 2: Building safety

Day Services often welcome large numbers of people daily many of whom will be experiencing challenging times such as rough sleeping, substance use and poor health. It is essential to provide a safe environment and yet Day Services can become disrupted and may feel unsafe both physically and psychologically.

Building safety is a key part of being a trauma-informed service. Attention needs to be paid to ensuring that the space is physically safe for both people accessing the service and those working and volunteering there. This can include reviewing the layout to understand entry and exit points as well as any hidden areas where people may feel unsafe. Understanding who is present and how people are admitted may be useful as well as auditing any incidents to better understand any areas for improving safety.

In addition, the Day Services need to provide psychological safety. Trauma survivors often feel unsafe in daily life, whether there is a real or perceived threat.  Building trusting relationships is the foundation for effective support in homelessness services yet trauma survivors are likely to find it difficult to trust people which can lead to challenges in forming connections with others.

Day Service staff and volunteers are often in a good position to build trusting, trauma-informed relationships with people accessing the service. Relationships should be authentic, respectful and have clear boundaries. Consistency is key, for example, not changing workers constantly. Being transparent about your limitations as a worker means that an individual knows what to expect and is not given false hope, which could ultimately reduce trust, and therefore feelings of safety. As workers, being reliable and doing what you say you will do, will avoid re-traumatisation of trauma survivors.

Step 3: (Re)building control

Being trauma-informed involves (re)building control through empowerment and collaboration. Re-gaining a sense of control and empowerment is vital within recovery, and enabling people to identify and build their strengths can help to reinforce a sense of competence, often eroded by trauma. Key to rebuilding control are strengths-based approaches and working in a collaborative way with people accessing services.

Strengths-based approaches

Strengths-based approaches focus on the person’s strengths (what they are good at, their positive social networks and what they would like to achieve), rather than looking at someone’s deficits (such as their ‘problems’ and what is ‘wrong’ in their lives). They also involve encouraging people to make decisions for themselves and develop their capabilities so that they build confidence and are able to move forwards independently.

Adopting a Strengths-based approach is an important part of helping people to re-build control over their lives and move to lives beyond homelessness. It is an approach that fits well with the ethos of many Day Services.

The broader activities that are offered by many Day Services provide opportunities for people to explore their strengths and interests. Learning new skills as well as art, music and sport can all help people to build confidence and self-esteem as well as developing aspects of their life beyond homelessness.

Collaboration and Co-production

Collaboration and peer support are also key to taking a trauma-informed approach. For organisations to be trauma-informed, people accessing services need to play an active role in shaping the services and the support they receive. This might be through consultations or feedback groups and by involving peer support in some way.

Co-production means designing and delivering services in a partnership between people accessing services, people with past experience of using services and staff or volunteers. Services work better when they are co-produced because they are more closely matched to what people actually want. Involving people also helps to build self-confidence and can help people to step forwards with their lives.

Running an effective Day Service

The responsibility for ensuring the smooth running of the organisation, including having appropriate governance and developing and updating policies and procedures often falls on one or two people. Feedback from those running Day Services suggests that this can be one of the most challenging aspects of the role.

Connecting to others in similar roles can be a vital resource for sharing information and providing peer support.

Homeless Link provide development and networking opportunities through free Leadership support programmes for established, aspiring and emerging leaders in the sector.

NCVO have useful guides on good charity governance including sample templates for members. The Association for Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) can also be a useful organisation for sharing information.

In addition, Homeless Link’s consultancy team can provide tailored support including undertaking evaluations, service reviews, and creating strategies, to improve its services, embed good practice, and stay strong financially.

Partnership Working

Most Day Services are at the heart of the local response to homelessness and rough sleeping. As such they are key partners for the Local Authority, commissioned outreach teams and housing providers. Creating strong partnerships is one of the most effective ways to work towards ending homelessness locally.

Day Services should and often do attend local multi-agency forums and meetings. This can include operational meetings focused on supporting individual people as well as strategic groups contributing to improving the  local response to homelessness. All meetings should have clear aims and terms of reference to ensure that the right people attend and the meeting achieves intended outcomes. Homeless Link's partnership team have created a self-assessment tool to help assess local partnerships. This can be accessed on the link below.

Multi-agency meetings focus on supporting individuals who may be accessing multiple services. Strengths meetings and Team Around Me take a trauma-informed approach, placing the individual at the heart of their own support. This ensures that people are given opportunities to build control whilst receiving support from different professionals.

In addition to attending external meetings, many Day Services operate as a hub for other providers to access people experiencing homelessness. As a familiar space, some people prefer to access advice and support within the Day Service setting and many services provide one-stop shops for health and drug and alcohol services, housing advice and benefits teams.

Research conducted by Homeless Link in 2017 showed that around 25% of Day Services who responded were operating a hub style model whereby external services regularly attended their building to deliver their services. Bringing services directly where people are can reduce the number of appointments that people need to attend and increase engagement. This can ensure that people experiencing homelessness engage with essential services which can be lifesaving.

Funding and fundraising

60% of Day Services report their main source of income coming from fundraising, grants and philanthropy. This is most commonly through grant funding (26%) and individual giving (21%). Just 26% of providers cite local authority grants or commissions as their main source of income.

Many smaller organisations lack a professional fundraiser and managers may be writing bids in addition to other daily tasks. Homeless Link has developed a series of bite-sized learning videos to help build knowledge and skills around grant fundraising.

Managing Data and Evidencing Impact

Key to funding and fundraising is being able to demonstrate the impact that the service is having. In addition, as Day Services are often at the forefront of the local response to homelessness, they can play a key role in evidencing the local need. This in turn helps to shape the service as well as services in the local area.

You can learn more about how to effectively use data in this toolkit, Measuring your impact.

Many services have a database and record a wide range of information. Much of this is deeply personal and often sensitive information that needs to be collected, stored and used appropriately. It’s important to understand good practice in collecting, storing, using and sharing data for casework purposes as well as the legal and ethical considerations.

Homeless Link has a series of resources on the collection, storage and use of data including a bite-sized learning series on Frontline Data Essentials that covers good practice, ethical considerations and how to use data to demonstrate impact.

An understanding of GDPR is a core requirement. Homeless Link have developed a series of webinars explaining how to comply with the legislation.

Supporting and Managing staff

Research undertaken for Homeless Link in 2017 found that the median number of people accessing Day Services was 400 with a median of 4 FTE staff employed by each service. This can mean that staff are supporting large numbers of people and they may also be working with people in highly complex situations for which they may be no simple resolution.

This places considerable pressure onto staff and volunteers who may also experience vicarious trauma. Moral injury may occur when staff are unable to offer the support they would like due to constraints within the wider system. Moral injury occurs when a person feels they have violated their moral or ethical beliefs or values, or when they are forced to witness or participate in acts that conflict with their sense of right and wrong. People working in the homelessness sector can experience moral injury, particularly when their work exposes them to ethical dilemmas or situations, where their ability to help is constrained. These pressures can lead to burnout, where staff may feel overwhelmed and anxious and can experience symptoms such as insomnia and frustration.

Managers can employ different process and practice to support staff wellbeing and avoid burnout. Regular staff supervision with managers that make time for reflection and wellbeing is essential. Reflective practice gives staff an opportunity to connect with colleagues and process the work that they are doing. Debriefing after an incident can also be critical for ensuring that staff are able to unpack a situation, reflect on what happened, and learn from the experience.