NSPCC Helpline

Media briefing April 2010

The NSPCC’s direct services are core to our strategy to 2016. We are enhancing our services to adults and professionals nationally to substantially increase the amount of help and advice we provide.

Our principal service is the NSPCC Helpline, but we also have other services accessed by the public and professionals. Our adult services ensure that we meet the needs of very young or disabled children who cannot access our children’s services themselves.

The NSPCC Helpline is a professional 24-hour helpline providing independent advice to the public with concerns about the safety of a child and to people and who may wish to remain anonymous. We are asking everyone to save the number 0808 800 5000 on their mobile phone or elsewhere.

Facts and figures about the NSPCC Helpline

What does the NSPCC Helpline do?

Why do people call the NSPCC Helpline?

NSPCC referrals to social services and the police

Facts and figures about the NSPCC Helpline

Launched in 1991, it answers calls 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The Helpline received 73,886 calls in 2008/09.
The Helpline made 11,243 referrals to social services and the police in 2008/09, compared to 8,170 in 2006/07.
In 35 per cent of NSPCC referrals, the family was not known to the local authority at the time.
Neglect, physical and sexual abuse account for almost half of all calls counselled.

What does the NSPCC Helpline do?

The NSPCC’s Helpline counsellors have a background in social services, health or education. They are specially trained to:

encourage callers to give as much information as possible about their concerns
extract all necessary details, often from anxious callers
assessing risk based on information received in order to make meaningful referrals to children’s services and the police.

In 2008/09, two in three child welfare calls to the NSPCC came from people seeking advice and information. These included calls about:

concerns for children’s welfare in residency
contact disputes queries about actions being taken by child protection agencies
inappropriate behaviour of adults towards children.

The remaining one-third of calls gave the NSPCC sufficiently detailed allegations of abuse to make a referral to children’s services or the police.

Around 60 per cent of reports of children at risk were made to the Helpline outside normal office hours.

Why do people call the NSPCC Helpline?

People often find it difficult to speak out about the suspected abuse of children within families. Those who call the NSPCC Helpline can remain anonymous. Last year we asked a sample of callers whether they had spoken to anyone else about their concerns. Of 538 people sampled, who had called with child protection concerns, 350 (65 per cent) had not spoken to anybody else before calling the Helpline.

NSPCC referrals to social services and the police

Nearly all (95 per cent) of the 11,243 referrals made in 2008/09 to children’s services and the police led to agency action. Two in three referrals came from people with no direct responsibility for the child, like neighbours or family friends. Worryingly, people wait an average of two months before they report abuse to the Helpline. Often they wait up to a year. In 40 per cent of those referrals, local agencies identified children as possibly being at risk of abuse who were not previously known to them.