Launching a Live Chat service for vulnerable families when children's centres closed

Action for Children runs Children's Centres across the UK, providing early support to families who need it. Budget cuts meant physical centres were closing. The families who relied on them still needed help, but the old model was no longer viable. The challenge wasn't just building a chat interface. It was rethinking how practitioners communicate with vulnerable families, what a "session" looks like in a digital context, and how to preserve the warmth and trust of face-to-face support through a screen.

This project covered service design research, product design and build, and coaching the internal team to maintain the quality of family support services during the transition. Close collaboration with practitioners and service staff ran throughout.

From physical centres to digital-first support

Budget cuts were closing Children's Centres, but the families who depended on them still needed help. The old model was no longer viable, and the challenge was maintaining service quality whilst shifting to digital-first delivery.

Coaching first, then building

The work started with coaching Action for Children's internal team, then moved into a service design research programme to understand what families actually needed and where the operational pain points were.

From there, a Live Chat service was prototyped and tested with practitioners. This wasn't about adding a chat widget. It meant rethinking how practitioners communicated, what a "session" looked like in a digital context, and how to maintain the warmth and trust of face-to-face support through a screen.

A scalable model that held its quality

The new service launched and gave families access to support that would otherwise have disappeared with the physical centres. Practitioners adapted. Quality held. And Action for Children had a model they could scale as circumstances continued to shift.

Visit the service at parents.actionforchildren.org.uk.