Keeping families supported when physical 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.

Working closely with practitioners and service staff, I led service design research, product design and build, and coached the internal team to maintain the quality of family support services during this transition.

Centres closing, families still needing help

Budget cuts meant physical centres were closing, but the families who relied on them still needed help. The old model was no longer viable. The challenge was finding a way to maintain service quality while shifting to digital-first delivery.

What we did

I started by coaching their internal team, then ran a service design research programme to understand what families actually needed and where the operational pain points were.

From there, we prototyped and tested a Live Chat service. This wasn't just 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.

Key elements:

What changed

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.