Alongside our public campaigning, our policy team works with Government and public authorities to push for better protections for children.
Here’s an update on just a few of the things the team in England have been doing so far in 2025.
Children's Health and Social Care
£2 billion extra funding for children’s social care
We’ve been campaigning with other children’s charities, as part of the Children’s Charities Coalition, to call for increased funding for children’s social care. In June, we were pleased to see the UK Government commit to investing almost £2 billion extra in England over the next three years. This includes funding to improve early help services, so children across the UK are protected from harm before situations reach crisis point.
Family support hubs across England
To scrutinise government support for families with babies and young children, we asked the Health and Social Care Committee to launch an inquiry. We then took this cross-party group of MPs up to Blackpool, where they visited Blackpool Better Start, an NSPCC-led partnership working alongside the local community and senior leaders to give every new baby a better start. This comes as the Government recently published its Best Start in Life Strategy and pledged £500 million to roll out family hubs, so that children and families across the country can get preventative support locally.
We won’t stop there – we’ll keep pushing the Government to commit to an ambitious workforce strategy to deliver this change. We’ll also support professionals from across health and social care to work together, so that everyone can play their part in keeping children safe.
Online Safety
Age verification systems
In the past few months, we’ve seen huge steps forward in safeguarding children from harmful and inappropriate content. Nearly two years after the Online Safety Act was passed by parliament, the new rules for tech companies finally came into effect. In July, social media platforms and other sites have had to put in place age verification systems to ensure children aren’t exposed to harmful or dangerous content. These vital new protections are the result of thousands of campaigners taking action to support our Wild West Web campaign and you’re a huge part of these positive moves towards transforming the online world so it is safe for children.
We’re continuing to shape the conversation around what Government and politicians need to do to tackle the risks children face online - whilst making sure they can still access all the important benefits the online world offers for learning, having fun and getting support. We’ve pushed the issue in the media, connected young people with parliamentarians and submitted responses to policy consultations to Government and Ofcom, the online regulator. We’ll continue to work to make sure laws, policy and practice keeps up with emerging technologies like generative AI, so that every child’s experience online is age-appropriate and positive.
Support for Victims
Specialist support
We’ve also been pressing Government to make sure that any child who is a victim of abuse or neglect receives the specialist support that meets their needs so they can start to rebuild their lives. Our research has shown that, for too many young people, this support either doesn’t exist or takes too long to access leaving them to deal with the aftermath of abuse without specialist help. To address this, we’ve been raising the issue in the media, briefing parliamentarians and holding roundtable events to call for change. So, we were pleased the Safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, made a commitment in the House of Commons to improving support for children who experience abuse or neglect.
To make sure this positive step translates into real change for young victims, we’ll continue to keep up the pressure, ask questions and push the Government to fund these services, and make sure all young people who need this life-changing support will be able to receive it.
Tackling physical punishment of children
Over the past few months, thousands of you have signed our petition calling on the UK Government to make sure children have the same protections in law against physical punishment as adults.
We’ve been working hard to raise the issue with parliamentarians as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which continues to make its way through Parliament. Once Parliament is back sitting again after the summer recess, we’ll be continuing to campaign for this change.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on our work to change laws, policy and practice over the coming months, and how your voice can help make this happen. You can subscribe to updates by becoming a campaigner.
