Small acts, big impact: how communities can support families through everyday challenges

Publication date October 2025

This research explores how early, preventative help for families can support our work to prevent abuse and neglect.

We asked over 6,500 adults across the UK to share their views on ‘supportive actions’.

This is a phrase we used to describe simple acts that can help families and children cope with difficult times in life. This might include things like struggling to get children to school on time or accessing suitable transport to travel to appointments.

Participants shared their thoughts on the:

motivations and barriers to offering support
supportive actions they would be most likely to take
who they would be most likely to offer support to
who they would be most likely to accept support from.

Findings showed the UK public had a real interest and appetite in this topic. Having a personal relationship was key to people offering support to others and receiving support.

Authors: Jean Lowe, Scarlett Haig, Claire Sands and Katherine Hamilton

Small acts, big impact: how communities can support families through everyday challenges
Download the report (PDF)

Key findings

Most participants were open to offering and receiving supportive actions and are optimistic about their benefits.
Participants were more likely to offer and accept supportive actions when it was people they knew well, though there was also a willingness to try to support others in their community.
There is a need for care and sensitivity when offering supportive actions to avoid causing upset or offence.
Participant characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity and whether the participant was involved with children in their daily life influenced decisions about offering and receiving help.

Recommendation

This research topic would benefit from exploration of intersectional factors, such as ethnicity, gender with a focus on obtaining wider representation of demographic groups across the UK.

“By supporting others, we are helping ourselves as well. Everyone needs support at some time in life.”

Survey participant

Citation

Please cite as: Lowe, J. et al. (2025) Small acts, big impact: how communities can support families through everyday challenges. London: NSPCC.

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About NSPCC research

Find out more about how our research activities are designed to improve our knowledge about how to prevent child abuse, stop it when it happens and lessen the impact on children.