Working Together 2018

Reviewed and re-published on 4th July 2018, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018  sets out the requirements for improved partnerships to protect children.

This strengthened guidance sets out the legal requirements for the three safeguarding partners who are required to make joint safeguarding decisions to meet the needs of local children and families.

Senior police, council and health leaders are jointly responsible for setting out local plans to keep children safe and are accountable for how well agencies work together to protect children from abuse and neglect.

The guidance is aimed at all professionals who come in to contact with children and families and includes guidance on current threats to child protection, such as sexual and criminal exploitation, gangs and radicalisation.

The Department for Education published two pieces of statutory safeguarding guidance which set the framework within which all practitioners should operate in order to protect children from abuse and neglect and promote their best interests:

• Revised Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance
• Local Safeguarding – Transitional Arrangements statutory guidance.

Both can be found on the government website at www.gov.uk/working-together-to-safeguard-children–2

The 2018 version replaces the 2015 version; transitional guidance was issued to explain how to move into these new arrangements. The statutory framework sets out the legislation relevant to safeguarding and it should be read alongside the statutory guidance.

A version of the guidance for young people and a separate version suitable for younger children are also available for practitioners to share.

The NSPCC produced a briefing highlighting the key changes available at www.nspcc.org.uk/revised-guidance-working-together-safeguard-children-2018/

The Department for Education released an updated version of Keeping Children Safe in Education on the 3rd September 2018; this revised statutory guidance should be read alongside Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018.

As of the 29th June 2018, Local Authorities in England were required to notify the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel within 5 working days of becoming aware of a serious incident.

They should report incidents where the local authority knows or suspects that a child has been abused or neglected and:

• the child dies (including suspected suicide) or is seriously harmed in the local authority’s area;
• while normally resident in the local authority’s area, the child dies or is seriously harmed outside England.

For more details on the reporting process visit www.gov.uk/report-a-serious-child-safeguarding-incident

Scared to share??
When Working Together was updated in July 2018, the government made the rules about information sharing much clearer? This is what it says:

“Fears about sharing information must not be allowed to stand in the way of the need to promote the welfare, and protect the safety, of children, which must always be of paramount concern”

Also – you do not always need consent to share personal information, although you should try to get it. It is good practice to get consent to share information as soon as you start to work with a family, so that this does not become a potential barrier later on if concerns start to escalate. There may be times when it is not appropriate to seek consent, either because the individual can’t give it, it is not reasonable to get it, OR because to gain consent would put a child or young person’s safety at risk.