Education & Safeguarding Reforms

A strengthened role for education and childcare settings forms an integral part of the Families First Partnership (FFP) reforms, focusing on the following expectations, requirements, and duties:

Role of Schools & Education Settings

• Core Safeguarding Partner
  Schools and education settings are recognized as key statutory safeguarding partners alongside local authorities, police, and health agencies. They are expected to engage actively in strategic planning and delivery of the FFP reforms, including contributing to multi-agency structures like Family Help Teams and Multi‑Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs).
• Attendance & Welfare Monitoring
  Education settings play a pivotal role in monitoring attendance, identifying issues early, and collaborating with Family Help Teams to support pupils whose wellbeing or safety is at risk—for example, by helping to detect early signs of neglect or family distress.

Requirements & Duties

1. Engagement in Multidisciplinary Teams

• Family Help Teams
  Staff must integrate into multi-disciplinary Family Help Teams, participating in assessments, planning, and delivering coordinated support. This includes sharing insights about pupil needs and follow-through with tailored interventions.
• MACPT Involvement
  Schools should contribute to MACPTs by providing relevant information, participating in meetings, and collaborating on protection plans. This ensures alignment between protective and educational support efforts. 

2. Information Sharing & Communication

• Effective Data Exchange
  Education settings are expected to share pertinent student information (e.g., attendance, behaviour, welfare concerns) with FFP partners under strengthened data-sharing protocols. This supports a unified understanding of child needs.
• Joint Planning & Review
  Participation in family-focused planning meetings—including Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) events—ensures the educational perspective informs holistic support plans. 

3. Supporting Family Help

• Identification & Referral
  Schools are expected to proactively refer families showing early signs of need into the Family Help system, smooth transitions between universal and targeted support, and reduce escalation.
• Co-delivery of Interventions
  Wherever applicable, education staff should co-deliver family‑focused interventions, such as parenting support programs, school-based mentoring, and activities that build family relationships.

Strategic and Cultural Responsibilities

• Relational Practice
• Contribution to System Design
  Schools may be involved in local governance groups to help shape service design, data collection tools, and oversight mechanisms that integrate educational insight. 

FFP emphasizes trust-based, trauma-informed engagement. Education settings are expected to adopt relational, inclusive approaches—focusing on partnership with families rather than purely procedural interventions. 

Education settings are central partners in the multi‑agency safeguarding system described in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023. The guidance reinforces that safeguarding is a shared responsibility, and that education providers must be fully engaged in local safeguarding arrangements.

1. Education as a Core Safeguarding Partner

• The guidance expects all local education and childcare providers working with children up to 18 to be included in local multi‑agency safeguarding arrangements.
• It emphasises the importance of schools and colleges contributing actively to discussions, planning, and decisions that support children’s welfare. Representatives from the education sector are recommended to be present at strategic safeguarding meetings.

2. Early Identification and Help

• Education settings play a critical role in spotting emerging needs and supporting early help, as they see children daily and are often the first to identify concerns. The guidance outlines the role of education in helping identify children and families who may benefit from early support.
• They are expected to work collaboratively with other agencies to inform assessments and provide or coordinate appropriate interventions.

3. Meeting New Multi‑Agency Expectations

• Working Together 2023 sets out new multi‑agency expectations for all practitioners, including teachers and education leaders. These include:
  • Sharing common safeguarding goals
  • Learning from and with other agencies
  • Challenging concerns appropriately
  • Working effectively with parents and carers through trusting, respectful relationship

4. Information Sharing Responsibilities

• Education providers must follow strengthened expectations around timely, lawful, and effective information sharing to support decision‑making and safeguard children.
• They are part of the system that ensures key information moves quickly between agencies, reducing delay in protecting children.

5. Contribution to Child Protection Processes

• Schools and colleges are vital contributors to multi‑agency child protection practice standards, providing essential insight on a child’s behaviour, attendance, needs, and lived experience.
• They are expected to engage fully in referrals, strategy discussions, assessments, conferences, and the implementation of child protection plans.

6. Whole‑Family and Child‑Centred Practice

• Education settings support both the child‑centred approach and the wider whole‑family focus promoted in the 2023 guidance—playing a key part in ensuring children’s voices are heard while working constructively with families.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill strengthens how education settings work with other agencies to keep children safe. Several provisions place schools and childcare providers at the centre of a more coordinated, proactive safeguarding system.

1. Education Providers Formally Included in Statutory Safeguarding Arrangements

The Bill explicitly includes childcare and education agencies as relevant partners within local safeguarding arrangements, ensuring schools have a mandated role in shaping and delivering local child‑protection processes.

2. Participation in Multi‑Agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs)

Education professionals are identified as key members of new statutory multi‑agency child protection teams, alongside social care, health and the police. These teams are designed to enable earlier, more accurate identification of risk and better coordinated intervention. 

3. Stronger Duties on Information‑Sharing

The Bill reinforces the legal obligations on education providers to share safeguarding‑relevant information with other agencies. This includes sharing data needed to assess risk and promote children’s welfare, supported by new measures such as a unique child identifier to improve consistency and accuracy.

4. Role in a More Decisive, Skilled Child‑Protection System

The government’s wider reforms place education staff as integral to a system where practitioners have the expertise, time and support to make timely decisions about significant harm. Schools are framed as essential contributors to consistent, high‑quality multi‑agency practice. 

Who They Are:
•    DSPs are senior leaders from local authority, health, and police (through our Pathfinder status, this also includes education as a strategic partner)
•    They act on behalf of Lead Safeguarding Partners (chief officers of statutory bodies).
•    DSPs form the WSCP Executive Committee and are responsible for ensuring their sectors meet statutory safeguarding duties.

Core Responsibilities:
•    Provide strategic leadership and accountability for safeguarding across their sectors.
•    Oversee the quality, compliance, and effectiveness of multi-agency safeguarding practices.
•    Ensure systems are in place to review and improve safeguarding operations when needed.

Key Functions of DSPs:
1.    Monitor and deliver multi-agency safeguarding priorities and procedures.
2.    Collaborate closely with education and other agencies to identify and respond to harm.
3.    Implement robust information sharing, including joint data analysis.
4.    Conduct rapid reviews and safeguarding practice reviews, with clear evidence of learning and impact.
5.    Provide multi-agency safeguarding training to ensure consistent standards.
6.    Engage with children and families, incorporating their feedback to co-design accessible services.

Governance & Oversight:
•    One DSP serves as the chair of the multi-agency partnership.
•    DSPs are responsible for:
               o    Collecting and analysing data to assess service effectiveness.
               o    Advising statutory partners on emerging safeguarding challenges and priorities.

In addition to general DSP duties, the DSP for Education plays a strategic leadership role in safeguarding across the education sector. Key responsibilities include:

• Strategic Representation: Acts as the education sector’s voice on the WSCP Executive and other key boards.
• Committee Leadership: Leads the Safeguarding in Education committee, ensuring broad sector representation.
• Planning & Reporting: Designs safeguarding priorities and work plans, oversees progress, and reports to the WSCP Executive and CYPE committee.
• Audit & Networks: Leads the Section 175 audit of schools and colleges, strengthens sector networks (e.g. DSL network), and amplifies the voices of children, young people, and families.
• Partnership Engagement: Works closely with other DSPs to foster strong multi-agency collaboration.
• Expert Advice: Provides guidance on education-related safeguarding challenges and emerging issues.
• Communication Framework: Builds links between key education bodies and the WSCP.
• Pathfinder Reforms: Oversees implementation and evaluation of reforms, including the development of the education sector’s role in Family Help and Child Protection.
• External Representation: Represents education and WSCP in strategic meetings and forums.

Who They Are:

• The LSPs are the chief officers from each of the three statutory safeguarding agencies:
• Local Authority
• Integrated Care Board (ICB)
• Chief Officer of Police
• Education representation will be established and facilitated by the NW RIPP

Strategic Leadership & Accountability

• Set the vision, direction, and culture of local safeguarding arrangements.
• Agree and review shared priorities, ensuring they reflect local needs.
• Ensure governance and accountability across their own agencies and delegated partners.

Oversight & Decision-Making

• Sign off on key partnership documents:
  • Multi-agency safeguarding arrangements
  • Independent scrutiny plans
  • Annual reports
  • Local threshold documents
• Ensure resources are allocated effectively to deliver safeguarding services.

Delegation & Collaboration

• Appoint Delegated Safeguarding Partners (DSPs) to act on their behalf in operational matters.
• Maintain strategic oversight of DSP activities and ensure regular communication.
• Work jointly with other LSPs to address cross-agency challenges and emerging risks.

Impact & Improvement

• Ensure the voice of children and families informs safeguarding strategies.
• Lead the implementation of recommendations from serious case reviews and audits.

Promote continuous improvement in safeguarding practice across the partnership.

Who can fulfil the role?

FHLPs can come from a range of disciplines, including:

• social workers,
• family support workers,
• other qualified or specialist practitioners across health, education, community, or voluntary services.
  They may or may not be employed by the local authority but must work within the area’s multi‑disciplinary Family Help teams and adhere to local protocols. 
  Where a child is on a Child Protection Plan or subject to s47 enquiries, the FHLP must be a qualified social worker. 

What do FHLPs do?
FHLPs provide consistent, relationship‑based support for families with multiple and/or complex needs across targeted early help, Child in Need (s17), and child protection work. Key responsibilities include:

• Acting as the main point of contact for the child and family.
• Holding and coordinating the single Family Help assessment and plan.
• Building a Team Around the Family (TAF) and drawing on multi‑agency expertise.
• Being alert to all forms of significant harm and involving the Multi‑agency Child Protection Team (MACPT) where needed.
• Continuing to work with the family during child protection activity, including implementing Child Protection Plans, alongside the LCPP.
• Offering Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) opportunities and supporting reunification where appropriate.

Where FHLPs sit in the system:
FHLPs are central to the Family Help part of the reformed safeguarding system—a seamless continuum from targeted early help through to child protection. They maintain relationships and ensure families don’t get passed between multiple practitioners, even when risks escalate. They link directly with education settings to understand concerns and co‑ordinate support.

Who can fulfil the role?
LCPPs are highly experienced, qualified social workers with substantial frontline child protection expertise. They are embedded within the Multi‑agency Child Protection Teams (MACPTs). 

What do LCPPs do?
LCPPs provide the expert child protection leadership within the MACPT and hold responsibility for:

• Statutory child protection decision‑making (including decisions arising from s47 enquiries).
• Chairing strategy meetings and child protection conferences (meeting the requirement for independent chairs).
• Ensuring risk is identified accurately, including extra‑familial harms (exploitation, serious violence, online risks).
• Providing expert consultation to FHLPs and partner agencies, including schools.
• Overseeing development, quality, and review of Child Protection Plans.
• Initiating emergency action, supporting pre‑proceedings decisions, and providing evidence to court.
• Ensuring practice is anti‑discriminatory, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of diverse families. 

Where LCPPs sit in the system:
LCPPs sit within the MACPT, acting as the child protection “specialist hub” for local safeguarding partners. While FHLPs maintain the ongoing relationship with the family, LCPPs bring the statutory authority and specialist expertise needed when risk of significant harm is present. This creates clearer, faster, and more consistent decision‑making in high‑risk situations.