NSPCC Research

Children's social care services provide vital support and care to hundreds of thousands of children and families each year. But these services are increasingly under strain. Our Children's services spending report series explores the issues.

A policy report examining safeguarding practices and multi-agency working within place-based family support settings in England.

A policy report examining how children’s early years have been prioritised at a national level in Scotland since devolution.

This evidence brief shares findings from a national pilot of EMPOWER, a toolkit for young people to quality assure their school’s SRE resources.

Online blackmail is a growing problem for children and young people and many turn to a parent or carer for help. We surveyed parents and carers to understand their views on this topic.

A policy report exploring the challenges of safeguarding children educated at home.

Evaluation of three online safety projects run by Together for Childhood practitioners in primary schools in Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent.

Learnings from EMPOWER, a framework developed by Together for Childhood in Plymouth so young people could evaluate the content and delivery of SRE in their secondary school.

Research analysing the technological solutions that can help to prevent, detect and disrupt grooming and online abuse.

Findings from an exploratory four-nation survey of attitudes towards informal child safeguarding in the community.

An evaluation of the Emotional Resilience programme, part of the Together for Childhood initiative in Govan.

How effective have the four Together for Childhood sites been at preventing child abuse and neglect?

Findings on the acceptability, validity and reliability of a tool designed to help practitioners assess the needs of expectant parents to identify areas of strength and areas where they may benefit from support.

A policy report exploring how online services enable the abuse and harassment of girls.

Evaluating how to make the science of infant brain development accessible and highlight the impact of happy and healthy brain development.

How effective has Together for Childhood been so far as an approach for preventing child abuse?

Research report outlining the risks Generative Artificial Intelligence poses to children and recommendations for policymakers and technology companies.

Research report from Together for Childhood exploring what professionals know, think and do to prevent child abuse and how we can support them.

Research to find out how support can better meet the needs of families living on a low income and improve outcomes for babies and young children.

An analysis of the research around sibling sexual harm and abuse and what support children and their families need.

A report exploring the barriers and challenges multi-agency safeguarding professionals face when identifying and tackling neglect.

Findings from a series of interviews with new and expectant parents living in the Govan community of Glasgow about their experiences of early pregnancy support in Scotland.

A report exploring how children’s voices can inform decision-making about online safety.

A research report exploring what young people at Together for Childhood sites know, think, and would do about child abuse.

Read our evaluation of an initiative with primary schools in the Together for Childhood site in Grimsby aiming to prevent abuse and neglect in families facing adversity.

Findings from a survey of 75 local authorities about reunification practice in England with recommendations to improve support.

Key learning from an evaluation of the NSPCC's Safe Home programme, supporting parents and carers of children who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour. 

Evaluation of Young Voices, a project working with young people in Plymouth to design campaigns promoting healthy relationships.

This review looks at the online risks and harms experienced by children in the UK between 2017 and 2023.

This briefing brings together learning from past evaluations of our early years programmes.

Research to help understand the impact of Together for Childhood, a long-term approach bringing together families and local partners to make communities safer for children. 

Research into the experiences of young people about their views on disclosing sexual abuse. 

Research into the risks to children of virtual or augmented reality.

This report presents the fundamental principles and key priority areas outlined in the government’s first Keeping the Promise implementation plan in Scotland. 

Key findings from our pilot of a system-wide approach to improving the quality of support for children and families affected by child sexual abuse.

We commissioned an exploratory research project to find out how young people's views and recommendations for relationships, sex and sexuality education. 

What encourages the general public to act on concerns about a child? We reviewed the literature to find out.

Read our literature review for an insight into children’s different experiences of learning about relationships, sex and sexuality and how sex education can better match their lived experience.

This summary  reviews the evidence on effective interventions to prevent or reduce child maltreatment.

A briefing exploring the Childline referrals process and the outcomes for young people involved.

Find out what we’ve learnt about delivering Look, Say, Sing, Play which aims to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect by educating parents about the importance of interacting with their babies.

An evaluation of how the Childline counselling model was enhanced and implemented to meet the changing needs of children and young people.

Find out what we’ve learnt about how the Together for Childhood design principles are working in practice and the differences Together for Childhood is making in local communities.

Learn about the Transformative evaluation method used to evaluate Together for Childhood, a place-based project that aims to make communities safer for children.

A commissioned review by Listen Up that explores what factors can influence children and young people's decision to seek help in non-face-to-face settings and how identity plays a part in help-seeking behaviour.

Understanding how the Graded Care Profile 2 assessment tool for neglect supports families and practitioners to achieve change.

Evaluation of our immersive tool to help adults with talking to children about difficult topics, like abuse.

Find out how young people benefit from using the Childline message boards to support their help-seeking journey.

An independent evaluation was commissioned to examine whether our SOSS programme increases children’s understanding of abuse and what its impact is in primary schools.

What we have learned from our approach to programme design, delivery and evaluation over the last decade.

Read our research on how the Keeping Safe primary school programme helped to increase knowledge and understanding of abuse concepts in children, parents, carers and teachers.

A process evaluation of our primary school programme about recognising abusive behaviours, exploring the views of children, parents and school staff taking part in the programme.

Read how the NSPCC’s Keeping Safe programme has been implemented in schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Northern Ireland.

This report looks at the sustainability and effectiveness of organisations implementing and delivering NSPCC services for local areas.

We conducted an evaluation to see how our virtual preventative mental health programme, Pregnancy in Mind, supported parents during COVID-19 and how effective it is when compared to the face-to-face programme.

Read our evaluation a programme to help parents and professionals gain a better understanding of the impact of early adversity of child brain development.

The NSPCC’s local services for children and families were adapted in 2020 to comply with COVID-19 restrictions. Find out more about what our research highlighted and the learning you can take from it.

At the end of 2020, we commissioned a review of relevant literature around volunteers supporting vulnerable families. Discover more about the research we found and what the key findings were.

Find out how we've been ensuring that parents and families continue to receive the perinatal support they need during the pandemic and what we've learnt from the process.

Our report covers the experiences of NSPCC staff who have been supporting children and families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read our evaluation report of InCtrl, a pilot NSPCC service for children and young people that aims to prevent technology assisted child sexual abuse (TA-CSA).

Our report investigates the challenges posed by austerity and welfare reform to services working with vulnerable families in Scotland.

We looked into the impact of scale-up sites delivering DART in comparison to families who previously attended the service at the NSPCC. The service is aimed at mothers and their children who've been affected by domestic abuse.

We conducted an evaluation of our Pregnancy in Mind's face-to-face service which is a preventative mental health service for parents. 

Read our report summarising the risks to children’s safety due to the conditions created by the coronavirus crisis, and why these risks might intensify during the pandemic.

Learning from an evaluation of Together for Childhood, a preventative approach to child abuse and neglect that involves community engagement and partnership working.

A systematic review of effectiveness of Childline and the outcomes for children who contact the service, including evidence about children’s helplines across the world.

Learn about what children and young people talked to Childline about in 2018/19. Also includes previous reports and thematic reports.

An evaluation of three NSPCC early intervention services aiming to improve the wellbeing of families in the military community.

Read our 2013 research into the childhood experiences of abuse of young men and women and how they disclosed and sought help.

We evaluated our Protect and Respect service which supports young people who have been or are at risk of being sexually exploited. Find out what the key findings were.

Evaluation of Letting the Future In for children with learning disabilities (LTFI-LD), a service to help children and young people with learning difficulties move on from sexual abuse.

Study into provision of support in Northern Ireland for women experiencing mental health problems during pregnancy and the year after birth.

Evaluation of the NSPCC’s Speak out Stay safe programme, which teaches school children to recognise and speak out about abuse and neglect.

What works to empower people within a specific community to prevent child sexual abuse in the home.

A decade after Professor Tanya Byron made 38 recommendations for government on keeping children safe online, are children safer in the digital world?

Key findings and recommendations from the Perinatal Mental Health in Wales Project exploring how services are experienced by women and their partners.

Review of how we supported organisations to use Graded Care Profile 2 (GCP2), a evidence-based tool to measure the quality of care being given to a child and identify whether a child is at risk of neglect.

What we learned from supporting local authorities to use an evidence-based resource for assessing whether or not to return a child or young person home from care.

Understanding younger children, children with a learning difficulty and girls who use our harmful sexual behaviour service.

Research into the backgrounds and behaviours of boys and young men who engage in harmful sexual behaviours using online and mobile channels.

Research into what young people and professionals say about the effects of offline and technology-assisted child sexual abuse, and how best to respond to it.

What we learned from supporting organisations to deliver Domestic Abuse, Recovering Together™, a service which helps mothers and children who have experienced domestic abuse.

What works in a service for teenage boys who display harmful sexual behaviour.

We commissioned a randomised controlled trial (RCT) in collaboration with the University of Bristol and Durham Univeristy to evaluate the impact and implementation of Letting the Future In.

​What children are telling Childline about the services they receive following sexual abuse.

What the evidence base can tell us about the online harmful sexual behaviours displayed by children and young people.

Preliminary study estimating the lifetime costs of child abuse and neglect