Published: 7 April 2026
A practical briefing for school leaders, DSLs, DDSLs, governors and safeguarding practitioners.
The Department for Education updated Working together to safeguard children in March 2026, replacing the 2023 edition for England.
For schools, the update matters because it gives clearer expectations on how agencies should work together around help, support and protection, and where education settings fit in that wider system. It also sharpens focus on inclusion, discrimination, domestic abuse, exploitation, online harm, and children affected by several risks at the same time.
This article summarises the practical changes most relevant to schools and safeguarding leads, and what teams should review now.
Working together to safeguard children is statutory multi-agency guidance for England. It sets out what organisations and practitioners must and should do to help, protect and promote the welfare of children.
The 2026 edition makes clearer that safeguarding duties apply to all children, including children living with birth or extended family, children in kinship care and special guardianship, adopted children, and looked-after children in foster or residential settings.
The guidance also reinforces that practitioners should consider unborn children where there are safeguarding concerns, so assessment and planning happen early enough to protect babies and families.
The updated guidance sets stronger expectations for inclusive and anti-discriminatory practice. It is clearer that agencies should identify, understand and challenge racism and discrimination, and pay attention to disproportionality in decisions, pathways and outcomes.
There is stronger recognition of domestic abuse, coercive control, child sexual abuse, teenage relationship abuse, online harms, and group-based exploitation. The guidance also emphasises children may experience multiple harms at the same time, and that plans should reflect this complexity instead of treating concerns in isolation.
The 2026 edition provides clearer accountability and stronger expectations for information sharing. It is more explicit that annual multi-agency reports should show impact on children and families, not only activity measures. It also gives clearer framing of responsibilities affecting looked-after children.
The guidance sets out a more joined-up Family Help approach, bringing together targeted early help and section 17 support more coherently. It highlights the value of consistent practitioner relationships, multi-disciplinary planning, and clear links between family help plans, child protection plans and care planning where relevant.
There is stronger recognition of the vulnerability of looked-after children in certain settings, including some residential contexts. The guidance reinforces links between care planning and child protection planning, and the need to be clear about who is accountable for actions and oversight.
Expectations are clearer around timely and comprehensive notifications, richer contextual understanding, and stronger learning processes after incidents. The guidance also clarifies specific notification contexts related to care leavers up to age 24.
Schools are not expected to replace local authority or safeguarding partner functions, but they are expected to work effectively within those arrangements.
In practice, this means school safeguarding systems should support stronger professional curiosity, clearer risk recording, and better multi-agency communication. DSL teams should be able to show how concerns are identified, escalated, challenged and followed through, especially where children face layered vulnerabilities.
It also means schools should be confident that decisions are fair and inclusive. Where patterns suggest discrimination, bias or disproportionality, leaders and governors need to recognise this quickly and respond with clear quality assurance and oversight. This includes scrutiny of referrals, outcomes and whether some pupils are being missed, misunderstood or over-penalised.
Operationally, the Family Help direction is important. Many schools are central to early identification of need, so staff need a clear understanding of thresholds, referral pathways and how school evidence contributes to joined-up planning. Consistency matters: families are better supported when information is shared well and when relationships with practitioners are stable over time.
A focused implementation review can help schools move from policy awareness to operational consistency. Prioritise where change will have the biggest impact on children’s safety and outcomes first.
Speak to our teamRecordMy helps DSL teams and leaders keep clear chronology, evidence decision-making, and support stronger multi-agency working.