Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026: what schools need to know

On 18 March 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) published the updated Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance, replacing the December 2023 version. This statutory guidance sets out how organisations and agencies, including all schools, must work together to safeguard and promote children’s welfare. Schools must follow it unless there’s a good reason not to.

The 2026 updates build on the more substantial changes made in 2023. The changes have been prompted by the government’s ongoing reform of children’s social care, including the Families First Partnership Programme, and reflect lessons from serious child safeguarding practice reviews, as well as an increased policy focus on child sexual abuse, domestic abuse, online harms and anti-discriminatory practice.

The guidance applies in full to all education providers, including maintained schools, academies, free schools and independent schools. We set out the key changes relevant to schools below.

Anti-discriminatory practice

There’s a stronger emphasis on anti-racist, anti-discriminatory and culturally informed practice. Schools are expected to create inclusive cultures and actively challenge racism and discrimination. The guidance also recognises that racism and past experiences can influence relationships between practitioners and the families they work with and expects practitioners to be alert to this in their own practice.

For schools, these changes have practical implications. Staff involved in safeguarding should be trained not only to recognise inequality, but to actively challenge racism and discrimination when they encounter it – whether in their own decision-making, in the concerns they receive or in their interactions with families and other agencies.

Schools should also consider whether their safeguarding data reveals any disproportionality, for example whether children from particular ethnic or cultural backgrounds are being referred, excluded or supported at different rates and be prepared to address any patterns that emerge.

Culturally informed practice means understanding that families from different backgrounds may have different experiences of, and relationships with, statutory services. This should inform how schools engage with them on safeguarding matters, without allowing cultural considerations to override a child’s right to protection.

Particular types of harm

The guidance expands on a range of harms, including child sexual abuse, domestic abuse (including in children’s own intimate relationships), coercive control, teenage relationship abuse and honour-, faith- or belief-based abuse.

New content addresses online harms and group-based child sexual exploitation and makes clear that children may face multiple harms at the same time. Technology is recognised as a significant component in many safeguarding issues: children are at risk of abuse online as well as face to face and in many cases, abuse will take place concurrently in both settings.

Schools should ensure all staff are aware of the expanded range of harms, understand that children may face multiple, overlapping risks and recognise the close link between online harms and those experienced in person. Safeguarding and child protection policies should be updated to reflect these strengthened provisions.

Family Help

The concept of ‘Family Help’ is introduced more clearly, bringing together targeted early help and section 17 support under the Children Act 1989 into a single, more seamless offer for families. This is coordinated through multi-disciplinary teams and a Family Help plan.

The aim is to provide a more joined-up response when problems first emerge, reducing the gap between early help and statutory intervention. Importantly, the guidance makes clear that appropriately qualified lead practitioners, not limited to social workers, may lead assessments and continue to work with families even where a child is assessed as a child in need under section 17.

Designated safeguarding leads should ensure they understand the Family Help framework, in particular the local thresholds for referral. This includes the criteria for when a case should be referred to targeted early help, to statutory services under section 17 and to child protection services under section 47.

All staff should be prepared to identify children who may benefit from Family Help and to share relevant information, including attendance data, exclusions and concerns about abuse, neglect or exploitation, as part of a coordinated multi-agency response.

Schools may also be asked to act as lead practitioners or to support family help assessments. DSLs should ensure that cases referred to early help are kept under constant review, with consideration given to escalating to statutory services if the child’s situation does not improve.

Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements

The updated guidance clarifies the role of schools within multi-agency safeguarding arrangements (MASA). Local safeguarding partners (LSPs) may name schools as relevant agencies under the Child Safeguarding Practice Review and Relevant Agency (England) Regulations 2018.

Once named, a school is under a statutory duty to co-operate with the published local arrangements and act in accordance with them. Schools should check with their LSPs whether they have been named and, if so, ensure they understand and are meeting the obligations that flow from that status.

Schools should respond to safeguarding audits of quality and compliance as requested by the local authority or LSPs and report audit outcomes to their governing bodies or proprietors.

Information sharing and data protection

The updated guidance makes clear that concerns about information sharing must not stand in the way of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.

It also recognises that “safeguarding of children and individuals at risk” is a processing condition under data protection law. This allows practitioners to share special category personal data, including without consent where necessary, if doing so will enhance a child’s safeguarding in a timely manner.

Schools should ensure their data-sharing arrangements are compliant and that clear processes and principles are in place for sharing information within the school and with external agencies.

Staff should understand the processing conditions that allow them to share personal and special category data for safeguarding purposes. Schools should also ensure they’re receiving and acting on Operation Encompass notifications, under which police forces share information with educational settings where a child may be a victim of domestic abuse.

Learning from serious incidents

The chapter on learning from serious child safeguarding incidents has been restructured. The rapid review timeline has been reduced to 15 working days from the date of the serious incident notification.

Additional guidance has been added on notifying the death of a care leaver up to the age of 24 and on notifying adults aged 18 or over where harm occurred in childhood but was not reported at the time.

The guidance also reinforces the importance of learning lessons from child safeguarding practice reviews and ensuring findings are translated into improved practice across all agencies involved.

The shorter rapid review timescale means schools must be able to respond quickly to requests for information from safeguarding partners. Internal reporting processes, record-keeping and lines of responsibility should be reviewed to ensure schools can provide accurate information at short notice.

Where a local child safeguarding practice review identifies lessons for education, schools should ensure these are reflected in updated policies, procedures and training, and that the governing body or proprietor is made aware of any findings relevant to the school.