Government must do more for Family Hubs to reach struggling parents, charity warns

The NSPCC has warned that the Government must do more to ensure Family Hubs are embedded within communities and accessible to struggling families after new research revealed many parents remain unclear about the support available to them.

Polling commissioned by the charity found that while 66% of parents with a child aged 0-5 in England had heard of Family Hubs, only 16% had used one. More than half of parents surveyed (51%) said they did not feel confident knowing what support was available in their local area.

The findings accompany a new NSPCC report, It Takes a Place: Multi-Agency Safeguarding in Family Hubs, which argues that Family Hubs have the potential to become a key part of both family support and safeguarding arrangements, but are currently being undermined by fragmented information sharing, inconsistent thresholds for support and workforce pressures.

Family Hubs are an initiative brought in by the current Labour Government to bring together different services in a ‘one stop shop’ to provide a single place to go for face-to-face support and information from a variety of services. Family Hubs are designed to provide a range of services for children, young people and parents under one roof, including health services, parenting support, housing advice and financial guidance.

The NSPCC said the Government’s ongoing national rollout of Best Start Family Hubs presents an opportunity to strengthen the model and ensure families can access help earlier, regardless of where they live.

The charity is calling on ministers to work nationally and locally to make Family Hubs easier for parents to find and understand, while improving links between hubs and safeguarding agencies including children’s social care, health services, schools and early years providers.

The report also recommends mandatory joined-up safeguarding approaches for all professionals working in Family Hubs, alongside improved data sharing and stronger evaluation of how effectively children are being safeguarded.

Alexandra Galvin, Senior Policy Research Officer at the NSPCC and author of the report, said: "For many parents, navigating support services in their communities can feel like an overwhelming and complicated web, but no family should be left in the dark without the necessary support they need.

"This latest report highlights that when families know about and can access their local family hub, they can become a place where babies, children and young people are safeguarded effectively and supported to thrive.

"If the Government can embed these hubs into the community and make sure professionals have the resources to work together and share information, we can build a system that identifies need earlier, responds more effectively, and gives every child the safe and supported start to life they deserve."

The report draws on practitioner interviews, case reviews and a YouGov survey of 2,084 parents of children aged 0-5 across England conducted in January 2026.

The NSPCC said the findings reflected continuing concerns about how families navigate local support systems, particularly at a time of increasing pressure on early help and safeguarding services.

The charity argued that stronger integration between Family Hubs and safeguarding partners could help identify need earlier and reduce the likelihood of families reaching crisis point before support is offered.