Revised statutory guidance: Working Together to Safeguard Children (2026) and consultation

On 18 March 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) published a revised version of the statutory guidance 'Working together to safeguard children (opens new window)'. The guidance applies to all organisations and agencies that have functions relating to children and all education providers and childcare settings. 

The guidance continues to reinforce the pivotal role education settings play in safeguarding children and promoting their welfare as well as the central importance of children having access to a suitable and full-time education.  

Key changes 

A summary of the changes can be found here. 

Key messages for schools and colleges by chapter are as follows.

Chapter 1: A Shared Responsibility

• Clear emphasis on the approach to safeguard babies:
  15. Practitioners must maintain a child-centred approach for babies, recognising their specific vulnerabilities and ensuring that their needs and experiences are actively considered and represented. This includes, but is not limited to, interpreting non-verbal and pre-verbal cues, observing interactions, and remaining professionally curious, particularly when relying on parent or carer accounts 
• Principles for working with parents and carers:
  19. Practitioners also need to recognise, engage, and work with parents and carers who are unwilling or unable to engage with services such as those experiencing abusive behaviour within their own intimate relationships, which may include coercive or controlling behaviour, teenage relationship abuse and 'honour' abuse including forced marriage and female genital mutilation, or abuse related to faith or belief such as allegations of demonic possession. 

Chapter 2: Multi-Agency Safeguarding Arrangements 

The guidance continues to reinforce that education settings should be fully engaged, involved and included in local safeguarding arrangements. This means making sure that the views and contributions of education and childcare providers are articulated at the highest level of decision-making. 

This relates to the work the Education Safeguarding Team have undertaken alongside the Norfolk Safeguarding Children's Partnership to engage school and college leaders through the Education Safeguarding subgroup and a range of networks to hear the voice of DSLs. 

Chapter 3: Providing Help, Support and Protection 

The chapter explains that family help combines targeted early help and section 17 support to create a more seamless offer for families, with consistent practitioner relationships and a family help plan led by a multidisciplinary team.

Throughout the document the language of Family Help is now used and this relates to the work in Norfolk and one of the priorities of the Norfolk Safeguarding Children's Partnership in relation to the Families First Partnership programme (FFPP).

The aim of the Families First Partnership (FFP) programme is to transform the whole system of help, support and protection, to ensure that every family can access the right help and support when they need it, with a strong emphasis on early intervention to prevent crisis.

This programme builds on the work on previous years and several underpinning piece of legislation which have sought to bring the whole system of support closer together including:

• Children's social care: stable homes, built on love - GOV.UK 
• Children's social care national framework (DfE)
• An illustrated guide to the Children's Social Care National Framework (DfE)
• Independent review of children's social care - GOV.UK 

For families, transformation through the FFP programme will mean a better way to access help. Instead of feeling like they simply don't know where to go, or being handed over between different teams, they will be able to connect with the right support, through an integrated and relationship focussed approach, that adapts to their needs.

The guidance describes the different levels of support and intervention: 

1. Universal services and community-based early help:
   126. Universal services and community-based early help is support for children of all ages that improves a family's resilience and outcomes or reduces the chance of a problem getting worse. It is not an individual service, but a system of support delivered by local authorities and their partners working together and taking collective responsibility to provide the right provision in their area. This level of early help is provided through "universal services" - such as education, health - and other community-based services. It is distinct from targeted early help delivered through Family Help teams, which are more formal arrangements coordinated by local authorities, where a plan is in place and a lead practitioner appointed. 
2. Family Help - targeted early help, safeguarding, and promoting the welfare of children:
   134. Targeted early help services delivered through Family Help, are coordinated by a local authority and/or their partners to address specific concerns within a family. Examples of these include parenting support, mental health support, domestic abuse services, youth services, youth offending teams and housing and employment services. Targeted early help should be provided for children and families who have multiple and/or complex needs, or whose circumstances might make them more vulnerable. This could include where a child is living with wider family members under a kinship arrangement. Targeted early help might also be appropriate to support a pregnant person to provide safe and effective care for their unborn child.  

The chapter continues to outline support and intervention for children under Section 17 and Section 47 of the Children's Act 1989. 

There is a focus on home educated children:

133 Parents have a right to educate their children at home providing the education is suitable. Most parents who take up the weighty responsibility of home education work hard to provide their child with a suitable education. However, the local authority has a duty to intervene where a home educated child is not being suitably educated, or is not safe, and in such cases the local authority must act to remedy the situation. 

New section on supporting babies including unborn children:

205. Practitioners should recognise the particular vulnerabilities of babies and ensure that assessment, support and services - including protection - recognise their age, stage of development and communication needs.

New information is added in relation to supporting children suffering or likely to suffer harm outside the home:

218. While any child can experience harm outside the home, children with special educational needs or disabilities, those missing from home, care or education, looked after children, and those with previous experience of abuse or neglect, may be at greater risk of harms such as sexual or criminal exploitation. Perpetrators, including those acting in organised groups, may purposefully target children who are already vulnerable.

219. All children, including those who may be causing harm to others, should receive a safeguarding response, and practitioners should work with them to understand their experiences and what will reduce the likelihood of harm to themselves and others. Some children who experience harm, including outside the home, can be mistakenly perceived to be older than they are.

New information is added in relation to supporting looked after children, paras 229 - 233 including:

230. Every looked after child must have a care plan. The care plan must set out how the child will be cared for and how their welfare will be safeguarded and promoted. The local authority has a responsibility to make sure the child receives the support and protection they need through their care plan. Safeguarding arrangements for individual children should be considered and reviewed as part of the care planning and review process.

Chapter 4: Organisational responsibilities 

Includes information on Operation Encompass which is already well established in Norfolk.

284. Under Section 49A of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, if the police believe a child may be a victim of domestic abuse, they have a statutory duty to notify the child's educational setting, and where relevant, local authorities. The information sharing scheme is known as 'Operation Encompass.' Notifications should be made for all children connected to a household where they have attended the incident, including children physically present at the incident, children not physically present, and situations where a child resides in another household temporarily or permanently. An Operation Encompass notification does not replace a safeguarding referral. 

Chapter 5

No changes related to education practice.

Chapter 6 

No changes related to education practice.

Next steps 

• Schools and colleges should ensure DSLs have read the new guidance giving particular consideration to the changes
• Schools and colleges should update policies and guidance to reflect the changes
• The Education Safeguarding Team will liaise with the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership about the revised guidance and what this means for local practice moving forwards. Further information will be provided to schools and colleges in due course. 

Related guidance is the Children's social care: national framework, which has also been revised. This guidance is written for those who work in and with local authority children's social care and contains information that may be useful to children, young people and families who receive support from children's social care. 

The document states partner agencies (including education) hold important and related duties which mean they need to work collaboratively with children's social care as they commission and deliver services that support children and young people to achieve and thrive. 

The outcomes set out in the framework are:

• Outcome 1: Children, young people and families stay together and get the help they need 
• Outcome 2: Children and young people are safe in and outside their homes  
• Outcome 3: Children and young people are supported by their family network 
• Outcome 4: Children in care and care leavers have stable, loving homes 

The Framework states local authorities foster strong supportive relationships with other safeguarding partners and relevant agencies, including education providers and childcare settings, to coordinate their services and to respond to the needs of children, young people and families in the round. 

Specifically in relation to education, the framework emphasises the importance of attendance and the factors which could increase vulnerable such as children missing education. 

Outcome 1: children, young people and families stay together and get the help they need 

Practitioners should: 

• Recognise school attendance as a key protective factor.
• Understand the importance of absence as an indicator of wider need, and the potential for improving attendance to positively affect outcomes for children, young people and families.
• Support families to improve children's educational attendance, readiness to learn and mental or emotional wellbeing in school. 

Outcome 2: children and young people are safe in and outside of their homes 

Practitioners should: 

• Recognise factors which may increase the likelihood of significant harm, such as different stages of child development (e.g. under-1s living with someone who has a history of violence).
• Be aware that certain factors may increase vulnerability (e.g. poverty, discrimination, children missing education) and understand that certain factors may also increase the likelihood of harm outside the home.
• Seek to understand the context in which harm is occurring, including online, considering coercion, responses to adversity and trauma, peer-on-peer abuse including teenage relationship abuse, and the impact of special educational needs and disabilities. 

Outcome 4: children in care and care leavers have stable, loving homes 

Practitioners should: 

• Help children access the health and education services they need, drawing on the expertise of Virtual School Heads and designated nurses and teachers, to improve their attendance, attainment and health.
• Provide useful information about, for example, advocacy services, independent visitor schemes, family-finding or mentoring and befriending, and children in care councils. 
• Support care leavers to access and progress in education, employment, and training, thinking positively about their options for education and work once they leave school. 

'Keeping Children Safe in Education' (2026) consultation 

The Department for Education (DfE) is proposing changes to Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) and are seeking your views on this.  

The draft guidance and consultation document can be found  here.  

The DfE has proposed a new section in 'Keeping children safe in education' (KCSIE), which focuses on issues that might arise when considering how best to support children who are questioning their gender, along with new sections on single-sex spaces and single-sex sports.  

Children who are questioning their gender may need sensitive and thoughtful involvement from their school or college. When handled well, with parental involvement and attention to any clinical input, the school or college's involvement can help to avoid safeguarding issues arising.  

These sections are informed by the public consultation on the draft non-statutory Gender questioning children: guidance for schools and colleges. The DfE have stated they will not be publishing standalone guidance for schools and colleges on gender questioning children, but propose instead to include this content in KCSIE so that children's wellbeing and safeguarding are considered in the round, and so that schools and colleges can easily access this information in one place. 

We encourage DSLs to respond to the consultation to ensure your views are heard.