How our services make a difference
We’re working to protect children today, prevent abuse tomorrow and transform society so child cruelty becomes a thing of the past.
We work with children, young people and families who need our help across the UK and Channel Islands. But it’s about more than the children and families we meet face-to-face.
By finding new ways to share our knowledge with others, we can help keep many more children and young people safe.
Rebuilding lives today
Letting the Future In is a service that helps children who’ve been sexually abused begin to rebuild their lives.
Trained practitioners work with children and young people aged 4-17. Sometimes they use creative therapy techniques like messy play, writing, storytelling and art. Being creative can help young people express the feelings they can’t put in to words.
This lets them safely work through past experiences, come to understand, and then move on from what’s happened. Our evaluation of Letting the Future In has found that children leave the sessions feeling more confident and less guilty, depressed, anxious and angry.
Find out more about how Letting the Future In and other services are helping children and families to overcome abuse.
"A lot of children will come feeling that they’re helpless victims, whereas from my perspective they’re ingenious survivors."
Letting the Future In practitioner
Helping parents prepare for tomorrow
Our Baby Steps service supports parents in the run up to the birth of their baby, and beyond. It’s designed to help prepare people for becoming parents, not just for the birth itself.
Thanks to trained practitioners like Nikki, parents can get help to give their babies the best start in life.
We’ve found that parents feel more confident as parents, and are more prepared to give sensitive care to their babies, after using Baby Steps.
Now that we know this service is effective in helping new parents, we’re working with other organisations to help them deliver it to families in communities across the country.
Watch our video above to hear how Nikki helped a couple prepare for life with a baby.
Find out more about how Baby Steps and our other services are working with families.
"If parents are feeling good in themselves, it can really have a huge impact on the role they play parenting their children."
Nikki, Baby Steps practitioner
As well as working directly with families and young people, some of our services are designed to transform the way professionals work, helping them make the best decisions for children. For example, Graded Care Profile 2 is a special tool that we developed for professionals which helps them spot anything that’s putting children at risk of harm when they make their assessments.
This is just one of many services we’re helping others to deliver. Because we’ve tested our services and learned what works, we can share our learnings with others so they can go on to help even more children.
We’re working to transform society so child cruelty becomes a thing of the past. By finding new ways to share our knowledge with others, we can help keep many more children and young people safe.
If you’re a professional or a commissioner for a local authority interested in delivering our services, find out more on NSPCC Learning.
We're helping protect against neglect
Neglect is the most common form of child abuse in the UK.1 But it takes many different forms which makes it difficult to spot, even for trained professionals like police officers, social workers and health workers.
That’s why we’ve developed a tool called Graded Care Profile 2 (GCP2) to help professionals to grade the care a child receives, and to spot where parents might need extra support. GCP2 is our most widely used tool - with the help our partners we were able to help 19,000 people in 2020/21 alone.
"I’ve let my kids down [in the past]. I know that for a fact. [GCP2] it’s helping me become a better person, parent even... I thought I were going to be stuck in a rut. I were actually ready for giving them up. [This] has helped me come back to reality instead of being back where I was."
Mother assessed with GCP2, Site A
Graded Care Profile (GCP) was originally created by consultant paediatrician, Dr. Srivastava. We worked with him to redevelop the tool to be more comprehensive and easier to use, naming the updated version Graded Care Profile 2 (GCP2).
GCP2 helps professionals build constructive relationships with the families they work with and helps parents to understand what their child needs. We’ve found that GCP2:
- helps parents see where they are strong and where they need support
- teaches parents and carers about health and hygiene, to protect against neglect
- shows parents and carers how they can support their children, helping them to stay safe and develop through play
- encourages families set up positive routines that support their child’s development
- and gives professionals insight into how to best support children and families. Read our full evaluation on NSPCC Learning.
Since 2016, over 21,000 professionals have been trained to use GCP2 in 85 local authority areas. In 2020/21 alone, our partner organisations used the GCP2 assessment tool to support over 19,000 people around the UK.2 Our training is available in multiple languages, and we’ve developed accessible versions for adults and children with learning disabilities.
Help deliver GCP2 in your local area
Around 90% of our income is donated3 - we can only be here with your help.
Real stories of children we've helped
How you can support our work
*DISCLAiMER
Names and identifying features have been changed to protect identity. Photographs have been posed by models.
References
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1. Sources: Based on child protection plan and register statistics and Scottish Government and Brandon, M. et al. (2013) Neglect and serious case reviews: a report from the university of East Anglia commissioned by NSPCC (PDF).
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2. According to the impact report for 2020/21: We reached many more children and adults through our scaled-up services than target, once restrictions eased and staff returned. GCP2 reached 19,898 people