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What Is Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026?
Working Together to Safeguard Children is the statutory guidance issued under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 and underpinned by the Children Act 1989 and 2004. It does not replace KCSIE — they are two separate frameworks, each statutory, each applicable to schools, and each covering different things.
KCSIE 2026 vs Working Together 2026: the difference
Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026
School-specific guidance from the DfE. Tells schools and colleges what they must do internally: DSL arrangements, staff reading, safer recruitment, online safety. In force from 1 September 2026.
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026
Multi-agency guidance. Tells all agencies — schools, police, social care, health, voluntary sector — how they must work together. Already in force from 18 March 2026.
The 2026 edition of Working Together replaced the 2023 edition on publication. If your safeguarding policy, multi-agency referral documentation, or staff training materials still reference Working Together 2023, they are out of date and should be updated now.
Who Does It Apply To?
Working Together 2026 is statutory guidance that applies across every agency working with children in England, not just to schools. The duty to work within the multi-agency safeguarding framework is shared.
Schools and Colleges
All state-maintained schools, academies, free schools, independent schools, and further education colleges in England. Includes the duty to share information on EHE deregistration, to engage with Family Help pathways, and to participate in multi-agency assessments.
Police
All police forces in England. The duty to share information, participate in strategy discussions and child protection conferences, and align information sharing with the WT2026 framework, including the seven golden rules. The Serious Violence Duty (PCSCA 2022) operates alongside this framework.
Health Services
NHS trusts, integrated care boards, GPs, school nurses, community health, and mental health services. Named as multi-agency safeguarding partners with specific duties to engage in the local safeguarding arrangements.
Children's Social Care
Local authority children's services departments, including MASH, children in need, child protection, looked-after children, and care leavers teams. The lead agency for the new Family Help model, responsible for the co-ordinated multi-disciplinary pathway.
Also applies to: probation services, youth offending teams, substance misuse services, housing authorities, domestic abuse services, and other voluntary and community organisations involved in safeguarding work. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have their own separate frameworks.
The Key Structural Changes in WT2026
This is a summary. Each section below links to a full guide covering the details for your specific role.
Family Help replaces Early Help and Section 17
What was previously framed as two separate offers — targeted early help and Section 17 children in need support — now merges into a single Family Help pathway, delivered by a multi-disciplinary team with one named lead practitioner per family. The terminology is changing. The threshold is not.
5-day EHE notification duty
Schools must notify the local authority within five working days when a child is removed from the roll at a non-standard transition point, sharing any relevant safeguarding information at the same time. Not an administrative form — a substantive information handover.
Strengthened duties for kinship, care-experienced and adopted children
Stronger expectations on pre-birth planning and on maintaining active oversight for children in kinship care, residential care, foster care, and for adopted children. Greater emphasis on multi-agency teams remaining engaged after placement rather than treating placement as resolution.
New duty: notifying the death of a care leaver up to age 24
A new obligation on local authorities to be notified when a care leaver aged up to 24 dies. Reflects a broader direction of travel: care-experienced people are a tracked population whose outcomes must be actively monitored, not forgotten when they leave the system.
Information sharing: the seven golden rules reaffirmed
WT2026 reaffirms the seven golden rules of information sharing and is explicit that sharing in the interests of a child's welfare can proceed without consent where consent would put the child at greater risk or undermine an investigation. For police and schools, this is the legal basis for sharing in every multi-agency safeguarding context.
Guides by Topic and Audience
Working Together 2026: What Schools and DSLs Need to Know
The full schools guide: Family Help terminology and what it means for how you refer families, the 5-day EHE notification duty, new duties around care-experienced children, the care leaver death notification, and a practical action checklist for DSLs. Also covers what it means that Working Together is already in force while KCSIE 2026 comes into force separately in September.
Read the schools guide →
Elective Home Education and Safeguarding: What DSLs Need to Know in 2026
A full guide to the 5-day notification duty: what counts as a non-standard transition point, what safeguarding information must travel with the notification, the national register proposals in the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and the warning signs that warrant a closer look before the file closes. Written for the DSL who needs to get a process in place now, not in September.
Read the EHE safeguarding guide →
Private Fostering: What Schools and DSLs Need to Know
What private fostering is, why it is one of safeguarding's most persistent blind spots, the legal duty to notify children's services under the Children Act 1989, and what to look for — from a change of address to an unfamiliar adult consistently collecting a child. The duty applies to school staff who become aware of an arrangement, not just to the families involved.
Read the private fostering guide →
Kinship Care, Adoption & Care Leavers: What's Changing Under Working Together 2026
The full guide to the strengthened expectations around pre-birth planning, kinship care, adoption, residential and foster care, and the new care leaver death notification duty. Includes a practical section for DSLs on maintaining appropriate contact records for care-experienced alumni, who to notify and when, and where school safeguarding responsibility ends and care leaver service responsibility begins.
Read the kinship care guide →
Working Together 2026: What Changes for Police-School Information Sharing
Written for serving officers: how the merged Family Help model changes who police liaise with on a case, how this interacts with GDPR-compliant information sharing, implications for CCE and county lines multi-agency working, Prevent and Channel referral pathways, and how to identify a family's current Family Help lead when making a referral.
Read the police briefing →
Statutory References
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026
HM Government / Department for Education. Published 18 March 2026. The primary statutory multi-agency safeguarding guidance for England. Issued under the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 s.7. Available at gov.uk.
Children Act 1989
Foundational legislation establishing parental responsibility, Section 17 (child in need — now delivered through Family Help), Section 47 (child protection enquiries), Section 67 (private fostering), and the overarching welfare principle.
Children Act 2004
Establishes the statutory framework for multi-agency safeguarding partnerships and the duties on agencies to co-operate. The legal foundation for the requirement to work together that WT2026 gives operational content to.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Contains provisions for a national register of children not in school, tying to the EHE notification duty introduced in WT2026. Progressing through Parliament. Status should be confirmed before advising on the register specifically.
This page has been reviewed against the published Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 text and does not constitute legal advice. Always refer to the official version on GOV.UK before updating live policy. The Safeguard Hub · Privacy Policy · Last reviewed: August 2026.