Welcome to the Day Centres handbook

Homeless Link’s good practice companion for Day Centres is now online FREE.

The Handbook was first published in 2004. Now, with funding from the Housing Corporation and The John Laing Charitable Trust we are delighted to be making this resource available for easy consultation, free, on our website.

The Handbook is in four parts;

• The Theory section looks at what day centres are trying to achieve and the context in which they operate

• Creating a positive environment is about putting in place all of the fundamentals needed to ensure that a day centre provides a positive environment for homeless people.

• Managing risks is about assessing and managing various risks and dealing with difficult situations.

• Working with individuals looks at the particular needs that some day centre users may have.

The Handbook was envisaged as an accessible guide to good practice in the sector of providing day centre care for homeless people that can be easily updated and as an internet resource we hope it will be just that.

This website aims to present the revised and updated content of the original day centres handbook in a format that is easily accessible, easy to navigate and easy to read. The hope is that staff and volunteers in day centres can make use of it on a regular or ad-hoc basis, reading through the sections and parts, or searching for a specific topic or question.

We have not re-printed the updated material in hard copy handbooks because it will be regularly updated and added to, and maintainining the content online allows for it to be an evolving and improving source of good practice. Hard copy handbooks are not available at the moment, but the website pages can be printed. See here more on printing from the handbooks

The sample policies and case studies give material for staff and volunteers to take back to their teams to discuss when reviewing and implementing policy and good practice. All comments are welcome, on the content, and presentation of the website. Please email the project co-ordinator with any suggestions, comments or errors you come across or would like to raise.