In the 1990s, the charity's publication, Satanic Indicators, fueled panic in social workers who went and accused parents and removed children from homes when they should not have.

1st Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts was one of the co-founder of the organisation which later became the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in 1889 with Queen Victoria as the patron.

[7] After five years of campaigning by the London SPCC, Parliament passed the first ever UK law to protect children from abuse and neglect in 1889.

The London SPCC was renamed the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children on 14 May 1889,[8] because by then it had branches across Great Britain and Ireland.

In the same year the Chief Commissioners of the Metropolitan and City of London Police issued instructions that all cases of cruelty to children reported to them should be handed to NSPCC to be dealt with.

The launch of the appeal occurred during a time when the organization was struggling because of an insufficient amount of public support and government funds.

[16] The most prominent of these cases was in Rochdale in 1990 when up to twenty[17] children were taken from their homes and parents after social services believed them to be involved in satanic or occult ritual abuse.

The case was the subject of a BBC documentary which featured recordings of the interviews made by NSPCC social workers, revealing that flawed techniques and leading questions were used to gain evidence of abuse from the children.

The documentary claimed that the social services were wrongly convinced, by organisations such as the NSPCC, that abuse was occurring and so rife that they made allegations before any evidence was considered.

[18][19] In 1999, an advert released by the NSPCC "warning" of the risk of children being murdered by strangers was criticised as a fear-mongering fundraising tactic, as such occurrences are exceedingly uncommon.

[22] In 2012, the charity won a PRCA award for its "Don't Wait Until You're Certain" campaign that encouraged people to call the NSPCC with any worry about a child.

The relationship was ended controversially after what Bergdorf described as a transphobic hate campaign against her, including false allegations that she had taken part in pornographic films.

[29][verification needed][30] The NSPCC runs local service centres across the UK where it helps children, young people, and families.

[32][verification needed] In May 2021, a helpline that was launched for victims to report abuse and harassment in educational settings had taken hundreds of calls since it opened.

[34] In 2016 the society's new six year strategy pledged to continue generating evidence of 'what works' in preventing child sexual abuse.