The merged Family Help model changes who you liaise with on a case. The seven golden rules of information sharing are reaffirmed. CCE, county lines, and Prevent referral pathways are all touched. A briefing for serving officers on what has changed and what it means for how you work with schools.
Working Together 2026 merges two previously distinct support offers — targeted early help and Section 17 children in need support — into a single Family Help pathway. For police, the practical effect is that the contact landscape for a family below the child protection threshold has changed.
Under the 2023 framework, a family with identified needs but not meeting the Section 47 threshold could be receiving support from multiple, separate services: an early help worker (often school or voluntary sector-led), a children's social care assessment team worker, and potentially a Family Support worker or Family Group Conference co-ordinator, each under different referral routes and with different recording systems. Police officers trying to understand who held current responsibility for a family's welfare sometimes had to work through several contacts to find out.
Under Working Together 2026, the expectation is that a family receiving support below the child protection threshold has a single named lead practitioner co-ordinating their plan through a multi-disciplinary Family Help team. That practitioner may be from any participating agency — a children's social care worker, an early help worker, a school pastoral lead, a family support worker from a voluntary organisation — but there should be one person who owns the overall co-ordination and can give you a current picture of what is in place.
Family Help is for families whose needs exceed what universal services can meet, but who fall below the Section 47 child protection threshold. Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm, the response remains a Section 47 enquiry and a MASH referral. Working Together 2026 does not move or blur that threshold. If you have a child protection concern, refer to MASH. If you have a welfare concern about a family who may need support, ask about Family Help.
Working Together 2026 restates the seven golden rules of information sharing (originally from the 2018 guidance, now updated to reflect UK GDPR). For police working with schools, these are the principles that govern every information exchange:
For police disclosures to schools, the lawful basis will typically be UK GDPR Article 6(1)(e) (task carried out in the public interest) combined with DPA 2018 Schedule 1, Part 2, paragraph 18 — the law enforcement processing provision. Where the disclosure is in the vital interests of a child (immediate risk of significant harm), Article 6(1)(d) may also apply.
For school-to-police sharing (the DSL disclosing to you), the school is relying on the same framework. The Information Sharing Decision Tool on this site walks through the seven golden rules for both sides of the exchange and generates a printable decision record.
The most common point of friction in police-school information sharing is not legal — it is operational. Officers sometimes share more than they need to (telling a DSL the full details of an ongoing investigation when all they needed to share was "there is a safeguarding concern about this child"), or less than they should (withholding welfare information because they are uncertain about the legal basis). Both create problems. WT2026 is clear: share what is necessary, share it promptly, record your decision, and get on with protecting the child.
For officers working county lines or CCE operations, Working Together 2026 reinforces the multi-agency information-sharing expectations that already govern this work — but the Family Help model creates a specific new consideration. Under the previous framework, a young person involved in county lines exploitation might be receiving "early help" from the school and "Section 17 support" from children's social care simultaneously, with limited co-ordination between the two. Under WT2026, that young person should now have a single Family Help lead practitioner who holds the overview.
That is relevant to how you share intelligence. If you have information that a young person is being exploited — but the nature of your intelligence means you cannot share the specifics with the family — the Family Help lead practitioner is a better point of contact than a generic duty line. They can act on welfare information without you needing to disclose operational details, and they are better placed to spot whether something you tell them is consistent with a pattern they have already identified.
The Serious Violence Duty (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, in force January 2023) requires police, schools, local authorities, health services, and other specified authorities to collaborate on a local serious violence strategy. Working Together 2026 operates alongside this framework — they are not in tension. Where a child is involved in serious violence, the WT2026 multi-agency information-sharing principles govern what you share with schools and Family Help teams, while the Serious Violence Duty provides the statutory basis for the wider strategic partnership through which that sharing is planned.
Prevent referrals and Channel panel processes sit outside the Working Together multi-agency framework in the sense that they have their own statutory basis (Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015). However, the information-sharing principles are the same, and WT2026 is referenced in Prevent guidance when dealing with children who are subject to both a safeguarding concern and a radicalisation concern.
Where a child is subject to a Channel panel discussion and also has an active Family Help plan, the Channel police practitioner and the Family Help lead practitioner should be co-ordinating — ideally through the MASH or the LSCP if the overlap warrants it. The operational risk of these two processes running in parallel without contact is that interventions designed for one purpose can inadvertently undermine the other. Channel is not a safeguarding process, but it sits in the same ecosystem.
For the full police-Prevent guidance, see the Prevent and Channel pillar.
One of the operational frustrations that the Family Help model is designed to address is the question of who currently holds responsibility for a family. Under the old framework, the answer was often unclear — multiple workers, multiple referral histories, no single current owner. Working Together 2026 changes that, but only where the model is fully implemented. In the first year of operation, patchy implementation is realistic, and officers should be prepared to do some groundwork.
The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub is still the primary point of contact for any police-initiated enquiry about a child or family. A MASH call or referral will tell you whether the family is currently open to children's social care, whether there is an active Family Help plan, and who the lead practitioner is. This is the fastest route.
If the MASH has no current record, the family is either below any current threshold or has not previously come to agency attention. In that case:
Schools often hold more current welfare information about a family than any statutory agency, because they see the child every day. When you contact a DSL, they may be able to tell you not just about the child but about recent parental contact, changes in the child's presentation, siblings' behaviour, and whether a Family Help worker has been visiting. This intelligence is valuable. Build the relationship with the DSL before you need it urgently — a call to establish contact and explain your role in the area will pay dividends on the call you make six months later when a child is missing.
Whether you share information with or receive information from a school, MASH, or Family Help team, record the outcome — who you spoke to, what was shared or received, and the decision you made about further action. WT2026 is explicit that this applies to decisions not to share as well as decisions to share. The record protects both you and the child.
📚 Statutory References
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