Working Together 2026 strengthens expectations around several of the most vulnerable groups of children: those in kinship care, adopted children, care-experienced young people, and care leavers up to age 24. This article covers what those changes mean in practice, with a specific section for DSLs on where school responsibility sits — and where it ends.
⚠️ In force 18 March 2026
These duties apply now under Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026, published on 18 March 2026. See the Working Together 2026 hub page for the full picture, or the official guidance on GOV.UK.
The children covered in this article share a common vulnerability: they are living outside a straightforward family unit, in arrangements that are often invisible to the system unless someone actively maintains oversight. For looked-after children formally in local authority care, there is a legal framework of reviews, virtual school heads, personal education plans, and designated teachers. But kinship care, adoption, and the period after leaving care are less well covered — and that gap is where Working Together 2026 pushes harder.
The evidence base for why this matters is not reassuring. Children in or recently leaving care are consistently overrepresented in serious harm statistics, in county lines NRM referrals, and in missing-from-education cases. Working Together 2026 does not introduce new rights for these children — but it raises expectations on the agencies responsible for maintaining oversight, and schools are among those agencies.
Working Together 2026 sets out clearer expectations on pre-birth risk assessment and planning where agencies have concerns about an unborn child. The emphasis is on acting early — before a child is born — rather than waiting for a crisis to develop after birth.
For secondary schools, sixth forms, and colleges with pregnant pupils or students, this is not a distant consideration. If a young person who is pregnant is known to be in a vulnerable situation — domestic abuse at home, involvement with children's social care, substance misuse concerns, or a pattern of adverse childhood experiences — they should be connected to the right multi-agency support without waiting for the birth to trigger an assessment.
What this means for the DSL in practice
If you have a pregnant pupil or student who is in a vulnerable situation, the DSL should discuss the case with the local authority early. The conversation does not need to meet a child protection threshold to be worthwhile — under the Family Help model, this is precisely the kind of situation where early, co-ordinated multi-agency planning can prevent a later crisis. Waiting until after the birth before making contact with children's services is not the expectation Working Together 2026 sets.
Kinship care refers to children who are being raised by relatives or family friends rather than their parents — grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, or long-standing family friends who have stepped in when parents cannot look after them. These arrangements can be formal (a court-ordered special guardianship) or entirely informal, with no legal framework and no agency involvement.
Working Together 2026 strengthens expectations on agencies to identify and engage with kinship arrangements proactively. The risk with informal kinship arrangements is precisely their invisibility: a child who is safe and well with a grandparent represents no concern, but a child in a chaotic or volatile kinship arrangement may be completely unknown to children's services.
What schools see that agencies often don't
Schools are frequently the first point at which a kinship arrangement becomes visible: a different adult picking up the child, a change of home address, a child mentioning that they live with grandma or with a cousin. None of this is inherently concerning. But it is worth a follow-up conversation to understand the arrangement, and in some cases — particularly where the arrangement is with someone who is not a close relative and has lasted more than 28 days — it may trigger the private fostering notification duty (see our private fostering guide).
Where a child is in a formal kinship arrangement (special guardianship order, child arrangement order in favour of a relative, or a formal local authority kinship placement), the school should be treating them with the same active concern as a looked-after child. The designated teacher for looked-after children should be involved. A personal education plan should be in place for children who have been, or are, looked after. The special guardianship order does not reduce the child's vulnerability or the school's safeguarding responsibility.
Working Together 2026 emphasises that children who have been in the care system — whether currently looked after, recently adopted, or placed with foster carers — require continued active oversight rather than a settled assumption that placement equals safety. The guidance sets an expectation that multi-agency teams remain engaged and do not stand down simply because a placement appears stable.
Adopted children
Adoption severs the legal relationship with the local authority and children's services. An adopted child is no longer looked after and no longer has a social worker. But adoption does not erase the adverse childhood experiences that preceded it, and adopted children can face complex needs — including attachment difficulties, developmental trauma, and vulnerability to exploitation — that benefit from continued multi-agency awareness. Schools play a particularly important role here because they may be the only institution outside the family with regular contact with the child. The designated teacher function applies to previously looked-after children (including those adopted from care) for the purposes of virtual school head engagement.
Children in foster care
Fostered children are looked after by the local authority and should have all the legal protections and oversight mechanisms that status entails: a social worker, regular statutory reviews, a personal education plan, and involvement of the virtual school head. Working Together 2026 raises expectations on all agencies — including schools — to actively participate in those reviews and plans, not simply to receive information passively. If a fostered child's circumstances change and the school is not updated, the DSL should be making enquiries rather than waiting for the next review cycle.
Children in residential care
Children in residential children's homes face a specific set of risks that are well-documented: peer pressure within the home, proximity to other vulnerable young people who may be targeted by criminal networks, and a pattern — identified in serious case reviews — of county lines exploitation reaching into residential settings. Where a pupil is known to be in residential care, the DSL should ensure that attendance monitoring and any welfare concerns are shared promptly with the home and the allocated social worker, and that the school's concern log captures any pattern of behaviour that might be relevant to the child's wider safeguarding picture.
Working Together 2026 introduces a new duty on local authorities to be notified when a care leaver aged up to 24 dies. This is a relatively narrow operational requirement on local authorities, but it signals something broader: the system is expected to maintain awareness of care-experienced young people's outcomes into early adulthood, not simply to close the file when they turn 18.
The evidence base for this change is sobering. Research consistently shows that care-experienced young people have significantly worse outcomes than their peers across every major indicator: housing, employment, mental health, physical health, contact with the criminal justice system, and life expectancy. The care leaver death notification duty is a recognition that the system has a continuing responsibility, and that lapses in oversight have real consequences.
What the data tells us
Care-experienced young people are significantly overrepresented in rough sleeping, in the criminal justice system, in suicide statistics, and in serious violence data. The Looked After Children 2026 data and the National Institute for Health and Care Research's longitudinal studies on care-experienced outcomes are the primary evidence base here. The duty to notify of a death is an acknowledgement that current monitoring is insufficient.
For most secondary schools, the operational implication is limited — you are not the primary agency responsible for care leavers. But it matters in a few specific situations. If your school or college has maintained contact with a former pupil who was a care leaver — perhaps through a sixth form programme, an alumni mentoring scheme, or informal pastoral contact — and you become aware of their death before the local authority does, notifying the relevant leaving care team promptly is the right course of action.
The question DSLs often ask about care-experienced children is a practical one: when does school safeguarding responsibility end, and where does local authority or care leaver service responsibility begin? Working Together 2026 does not redraw those boundaries in a way that shifts legal responsibility from one agency to another. But it does set an expectation that agencies actively co-ordinate rather than assuming someone else has it covered.
✓ Bottom line for DSLs
Working Together 2026 does not turn schools into care leaver support services. But it does set an expectation that everyone in the system maintains active awareness of care-experienced young people, shares information when it matters, and does not assume someone else has it in hand. For most schools, that means good record-keeping, a functioning relationship with your virtual school head, and the confidence to pick up the phone to children's services when something doesn't feel right.
📚 Statutory References
Sources
[1] HM Government / Department for Education (2026). Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026. GOV.UK. Published 18 March 2026.
[2] Children Act 1989. legislation.gov.uk.
[3] Children Act 2004. legislation.gov.uk.
[4] Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000. legislation.gov.uk.
This article has been reviewed against the published Working Together 2026 text and does not constitute legal advice. Always refer to the official version on GOV.UK before updating live policy. Last reviewed: August 2026.