Safeguarding Bulletin - 18 March 2026
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 published
The Department for Education has just published Working together to safeguard children - A guide to multi-agency working to help, protect and promote the welfare of children.
The 2026 update builds on reforms and wider children’s social care changes, with a strong emphasis on early help, family support and multi-agency accountability.
The guidance starts with: Successful outcomes for children depend on strong partnership working between parents/carers and the practitioners working with them. Practitioners should take a child-centred approach to meeting the needs of the whole family.
This underpins safeguarding as a shared responsibility across all agencies, with clear expectations on how organisations should work together to identify needs earlier with a coordinated support in conjunction with the child’s family network. This highlights the family-centred approach, encouraging professionals to work in partnership with parents and wider family members whilst having a clear focus on the child, their safety and lived experience.
There are clearer roles for safeguarding partners and greater integration with the education sector, from early years through to education leavers. With the strengthening of multi-agency working arrangements, the guidance reflects forthcoming reforms, including the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, all of which should encourage earlier intervention, improved information sharing, and better oversight of children.
There is emphasis on recognising harm outside the home, supporting vulnerable groups and ensuring professionals remain curious and child centred.
Key Safeguarding Themes for Practice: With a stronger focus on early help and prevention, there is greater emphasis on family networks and support systems, clearer multi-agency accountability and collaboration, an increased role for education professionals, continued focus on contextual safeguarding and extra-familial harm and alignment with wider social care reforms.
Download the Statutory guidance
Final free KCSiE 2026 webinar booking now...
We’re running one final free webinar to talk with other DSLs about their perspectives on the planned changes, analysing the consultation, and sharing a summary of changes. Click the button below to find out more and reserve your space.
Book now: Monday 23 March @ 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Free Webinar: Prevention, necessity and proportionality - the implications of the new guidance on restrictive interventions
New date added due to popular demand: 30th April.
The new guidance for restrictive interventions, including use of reasonable force in schools in England will be effective from April 2026. This guidance illustrates how and when school staff can use restrictive interventions including reasonable force and seclusion to keep pupils and others safe.
This free webinar will look at the implications of the new guidance, how this integrates with the RSHE guidance, KCSiE, and looks at the lessons learnt from other sectors. Our March webinars filled up quickly so click the button to reserve your space for 30th April.
Book now: Thursday, 30 April @ 4pm - 5pm
Diagnostic toolkit for exploited children
Despite growing recognition that children exploited into criminal activity are victims, not offenders, a significant number of these children continue to be criminalised in England.
Ending Coercive Offending has published a Diagnostic toolkit for exploited children in England. The toolkit is designed for professionals working in police and youth justice settings, children’s social care, education and inclusion, and strategic partnerships. It provides a structured, evidence-informed approach for local areas to diagnose where their systems are failing exploited children, and to develop practical solutions grounded in children's rights, intersectional analysis, and multi-agency collaboration.
Find out more and download the toolkit
Check out our comprehensive child exploitation resources for DSLs
Research suggests around 1 in 10 children in the UK have been neglected
The NSPCC has published an updated statistics briefing on child neglect. The document looks at data and statistics about child neglect in the UK to help professionals make evidence-based decisions, covering the scale of the issue and what data tells us about children who have been neglected.
Find out more and download the briefing
Check out our newly-updated neglect resources for DSLs
Understanding harmful sexual behaviour, violence and misogyny by children
This new government evidence pack brings research together to help professionals better understand harmful sexual behaviour (HSB), and violence and misogyny among children and young people.
The findings highlight sexual harassment, image-based abuse and misogynistic behaviour are reported widely by girls in schools showing the scale of harm experienced. The report highlights that harmful behaviour rarely develops in isolation and it is influenced by a range of factors including childhood trauma, peer pressure, exposure to misogynistic online content plus wider social and cultural influences.
The evidence stresses that harmful sexual behaviour exists on a spectrum, ranging from developmentally inappropriate behaviour through to serious abuse and/or violence. Children who display such behaviour are still children themselves and may have their own vulnerabilities or experiences of trauma.
The report highlights the importance of early identification, and education and intervention, particularly through schools and youth services, to challenge harmful attitudes, promote respectful relationships and prevent behaviours escalating into more serious harm.
Find out more and download the pack
Podcast: an introduction to contextual safeguarding
In 2015, Professor Carlene Firmin coined the term ‘contextual safeguarding’ to describe an approach to safeguarding young people that looks at additional ‘contexts’ for harm outside of the family home and beyond the control of a child’s parents and carers.
In this NSPCC Learning podcast, Professor Firmin talks about the concept of contextual safeguarding and how practitioners can incorporate contextual safeguarding practices into their work with children and families.
The episode covers:
what contextual safeguarding is
how different contexts affect children’s risk of abuse
how you can build partnerships that facilitate a contextual response
how you can monitor outcomes of contextual safeguarding response
examples of contextual safeguarding in practice.
Free Webinar: Safeguarding children around dogs
Children are encountering dogs more often than ever. There are more dogs in public spaces, and many places are now dog-friendly. This increases the importance of clear, adult-led safeguarding.
This free webinar on 25th March at 8pm-9pm, presented by Safeguarding Practitioner Laura Reitsis, focuses on preventing risk in outdoor and shared environments. It looks at safeguarding practice rather than dog training or child instruction.
The session will cover:
Differences in how dog breeds and types behave in public
Key elements of dog body language adults need to recognise
How dogs may respond to ball games and bike riding
How parks and shared spaces can influence dog behaviour
Practical steps adults can take to reduce risk early
Education vacancies
A few of our members have asked if we could promote some of their vacancies to our readers, which you'll find listed below.
Science Teacher (Break Through School)
Teaching Assistant/Higher Level Teaching Assistant (TLC the Learning Centre)
Teaching Assistant (Allerthorpe School)
SEND Class Teacher (Highgate Hill House School)
If you are a member and have any vacancies you would like us to include in future editions, please get in touch with us.
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