What does success look like for Day Services? Alleviating crises? Meeting someone’s basic needs? Ending rough sleeping and homelessness? Connecting people to effective support? Encouraging people to thrive?
Day Services do all of these things, above all, providing welcoming trusted spaces where people can feel comfortable and can begin to move forwards.
In 2025-6, Homeless Link alongside 30 different services, co-created a set of good practice Principles for Day Services. What came across most clearly was that despite a range of sizes, locations and stages of development they all shared key values – most important of all was the role of Day Services as places of welcome where trusting relationships can develop.
In the most recent episode of Homeless Link’s Going Beyond Podcast, Angie Allgood from NewWay shares the inspiring story of Moses whose only interest was in planting some Sweetcorn seeds. Through supporting his goal, Moses’ story changed from one of long term rough sleeping to employment in their gardening social enterprise. His story showcases perfectly the ability of Day Services to listen to people, build relationships and work in a strengths-based way that enables meaningful progress to happen in peoples’ lives.
Day Services often aim to be all things to all people, doing everything from providing food and showers to referring people into emergency accommodation to acting as a hub for partner agencies to offering activities that develop skills. However it is often the role they play in providing a safe space, developing trusting relationships and building self-esteem that is hard to measure but can have the most meaningful impact on peoples’ lives.
This podcast episode features Andrew Ashley from Expert Link, Matt Harris from the Booth Centre, Angie Allgood from NewWay and Vicky Album from Homeless Link.
Listen below, or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And make sure you check out the full back catalogue of Going Beyond podcasts.