Working Together to Safeguard Children is issued by the government under the Children Act 1989 and 2004 and is the primary statutory guidance which sets out how organisations should work together to protect children from harm and promote their welfare.

The guidance applies to:

• Local authorities, including social work, early help and community safety teams
• Health services including NHS trusts, GPs, mental health services
• Police and criminal justice services
• Education settings, including schools and colleges
• Youth offending teams
• Voluntary and community organisations
• Anyone working with children and families

Some organisations (like local authorities and police) have a legal duty to follow the guidance, while others (like charities and sports clubs) are expected to have regard to it in their work with children. 

Since first published in 1999, Working Together to Safeguard Children has been regularly updated to reflect changes in legislation and learning from serious case reviews.

The concept of harm outside the home appeared for the first time in the 2018 version, explicitly recognising that children may face significant risks in contexts beyond their family environment – including peer groups, schools, online spaces, and local neighbourhoods.

However, the real-world application of this principle is more nuanced. It can be particularly challenging in adolescent safeguarding, where concerns often involve not just an individual but entire peer networks or locations. In these situations, professionals may be sharing information not only about one child, but about several, each of whom has their own right to privacy and protection.  

The challenge lies not in deciding to share information, but in recognising which information is significant, when it becomes relevant, who needs to know it, and how it can be shared in a way that supports meaningful action. In safeguarding, we are not just exchanging data; we are trying to make sense of the circumstances of child’s life. 

There is often a misconception that “more is better,” but sharing everything can obscure key concerns, overwhelm others, or unnecessarily invade a child or family’s privacy. Similarly, sharing too little may hide patterns of risk or prevent the early intervention that could make all the difference. 

Practitioners must balance their legal responsibilities with their moral and ethical duty to the young person as well as any other children involved. It is not enough to simply pass on facts; they must ask: 

The principle of proportionality is essential – what might appropriately be shared in a child protection conference, where all attendees have a clear safeguarding role, is not the same as what should be shared in a broader panel where not all participants know the child. 

This aligns with the data minimisation principle under UK GDPR (Article 5(1)(c)), which requires that personal data be “adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary” for its intended purpose. This is often referred to as proportionate and purposeful sharing – rooted in professional judgment and respectful of the child’s right to privacy. 

Among safeguarding partners, and specifically in relation to harm outside the home, police have an additional level of complexity. At times practitioners in other sectors express concerns that police are reluctant to share information and cite “ongoing investigations” as a reason. 

Whether or not this perception is always fair, it highlights the importance of transparent, collaborative practice. There are legitimate reasons why the police may be restricted in what they can share: 

However, these constraints should be carefully and thoughtfully applied and never as a blanket reason to withhold safeguarding information. 

Police – like all safeguarding partners – should aim to share what can be shared, explain when something cannot, and work with partners to find safe and lawful ways to contribute to multi-agency understanding of risk and harm. 

Effective information sharing is not just a procedural duty – it is an act of professional care and human respect. When we engage fully with the complexity,  we not only protect children more effectively, but we demonstrate that we are truly listening to their experiences and taking their lives seriously. 

“There was a case where something like happened with me and I told a teacher thinking, oh this will be just between us and then like I found out that like the teacher went on to like another teacher and then like come out and I was like, oh well it made me feel like I couldn’t trust anyone and like I was like, well who can I talk to then about if something else happened”

Quote from Young Person – The Contextual Safeguarding Young People’s Podcast Series: Episode 1 

Whenever there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child or young person is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, a strategy discussion should be convened. The purpose of a strategy discussion is to bring partners together to share information to decide whether the threshold has been met for a single or joint (children’s social care and police) child protection investigation and to plan what will happen next. Detailed guidance is given in Working Together to Safeguard Children.  

In line with the London Safeguarding Children Procedures a strategy discussion should normally be held within three working days of concerns being identified. In urgent situations, it should take place on the same day, while in complex but less immediate cases, the meeting may be held within five working days. 

These timescales are intended as a guide to good practice, not a substitute for professional judgment.  The timing of a strategy discussion should always reflect the level of risk to the child and the need for timely decision-making. In all cases, the response should be proportionate, purposeful, and focused on the best interests of the child. 

The majority of London boroughs report that they undertake between five and ten strategy discussions relating to adolescent safeguarding each week. This frequency should never lead to complacency; each discussion should be approached with the same level of rigour and critical reflection.  Every Strategy Discussion should reflect the unique context and circumstances of the child.  

The London Safeguarding Children Procedures emphasise the importance of “shared assessment, analysis and decision-making,” and participants should always ask, not assume. This means that discussions should prioritise triangulation of information, active consideration of risks and uncertainties, and clarity around actions 

Strategy discussions involving adolescents must navigate the complex and often overlapping dynamics of intrafamilial and extrafamilial harm as well as historic, current and future risk and harm.  They are critical spaces for collective decision-making and planning and as such, they must be approached with openness, and a spirit of professional curiosity. 

A key principle is maintaining a both/and mindset. Adolescents may be experiencing harm within the family (e.g. neglect, exposure to domestic violence) and/or outside it (e.g. grooming, gang affiliation, peer-on-peer abuse).  Attendees should avoid prematurely attributing risk to one domain at the exclusion of another. This means actively resisting oversimplification and ensuring all hypotheses are tested rather than assumed. 

Who should attend? As per the London Safeguarding Children Procedures, strategy discussions should be multidisciplinary. Although traditionally strategy discussions can be seen as quorate with representatives from the three named safeguarding partners, concerns relating to adolescents can helpfully draw upon a wider representation.  

Children’s Social Care will always be represented and act as the Chair, having responsibility for determining who should be invited, coordinating the discussion and ensuring the child’s welfare remains central. The Chair is responsible for ensuring that all relevant practitioners should be involved including:  

• Children’s Services: Any current or previous workers. If the young person is in the care of the local authority, consideration should be given to inviting the fostering link worker, residential manager and Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) as well as foster carers or representatives from placement 

• Police (including CSE or Exploitation leads): To share intelligence and assess criminal elements or ongoing investigations. Police representatives attend on behalf of the Metropolitan Police as a whole, regardless of their individual department or unit. They are therefore expected to familiarise themselves with all relevant information and intelligence available across the organisation prior to the meeting.  

• Health practitioners (e.g. CAMHS, GPs, sexual health services):  To provide insight into the child’s physical and mental wellbeing. It is the responsibility of the Chair to determine the most appropriate health representative to attend, based on the known circumstances of the child. Representation may be drawn from primary care, acute services, or specialist provision such as CAMHS, and more than one health professional can be invited where this supports a fuller understanding of the child’s needs and experiences. 

• Education providers: To share relevant information, including any known or suspected special educational needs, attendance patterns, exclusions (including internal exclusions), attainment data, school history, and any insight into peer relationships or concerns.  Given the central role that education settings play in safeguarding – often serving as a key place of safety for adolescents – it is critical that the current school should be represented. Consideration should be given to inviting a representative from the Virtual School, as they hold a strategic overview of all children known to social care. In addition, the child’s current school should be represented.  

• Youth offending or early help services (if involved): To understand behaviours and interventions that are currently in place or have been in the recent past.  

• Community safety: To contribute the place-based perspective as well as knowledge of wider context that complements the child-level work of social care, education, or health. 

• Voluntary, community or specialist services: To understand the perspective of practitioners with whom the child may often have a trusting relationship.  

Representatives from each agency must bring specific and relevant information. This includes any known risks, protective factors, contact history, and perspectives of the young person and their family. Up-to-date chronologies, case notes, and observations including changes in behaviour are critical. 

A safety plan is not a standalone solution. It does not, on its own, make a young person safe. The power lies not in the document itself, but in the process – how we work together, listen, act, and stay accountable. In order to acknowledge that we can never keep young people completely safe, some boroughs call them ‘Safer Plans’ 

Safety plans should never exist to tick a box or meet a procedural requirement and should never shift the entire responsibility onto the young person.  Instead, they are a living record of how adults and services are actively listening to the young person to understand what they and their peers think would help and then “stepping up to step in” – not asking young people to navigate risk alone or to avoid or fix risky situations on their own.  While the young person is an integral part of the process agency, ownership, and a voice in key aspects – ultimately, the responsibility for their safety rests with the adults around them.

A good safety plan should answer the questions “What is happening around this young person that makes them unsafe and what can we do about it?” and “How do we build safety into the spaces and relationships young people are part of?  

Effective safety planning should always be:

• Collaborative – built with the young person and/or family, not for them
• Respectful – using language that doesn’t blame, label or control
• Context aware – addressing where and when the risks occur, not just what the young person does
• Clear and accountable – outlining what adults will do to create change
• Flexible – adapting to the young person’s life as things change
• Purpose driven – written to benefit the young person, not satisfy a procedure

It is common – and completely valid – for a young person to resist being part of safety planning. This can be for a number of valid reasons. They may not feel heard, they may fear consequences, they may feel loyalty to their peers or be stuck in unsafe dynamics, or it may be simply that they have been through this with too many people, too many times before.

This should not be seen as rejection, defiance or ‘unwillingness to engage’.  Practitioners should remember that adult responsibility doesn’t pause when the young person opts out.  Practitioners can still make a safety plan around the young person – but should do so transparently. The young person should know what is happening and be told that their thoughts will be welcomed when and if they are ready to participate. It is the practitioner’s responsibility to find new, different, and creative ways to engage. This cannot be a one-off request. Genuine curiosity and understanding are essential; we must ask why a young person may not want to engage and adapt our approach accordingly. 

A safety plan is only useful if it lives in practice. That means that copies should be shared with: 

Safety plans reviews should be scheduled at appropriate intervals based on the level of risk and complexity. A review should be considered immediately, if there is: 

Reviews should look at: 

“It was when my worker called me to say my mum had been arrested because of stuff I had left in my house, that I really thought I needed to change my life…. He came and picked me up and I opened up about the exploitation. I showed him snap chats from people threatening me and trying to force me to sell drugs for them or hold things in my house. He knew about this sort of thing and helped me put a plan together for how to move away from those people. It was difficult, because I still lived in the area that they hung around in, but I was able to get involved in a local charity, where I could access boxing fitness sessions and food, as well as meet people that wanted to help me. I kind of felt like I belonged there and was appreciated.”

Quote from a young person from Wandsworth

The London Safeguarding Children Procedures are explicit that where a child moves or has been moved to another local authority because of the risk of extrafamilial harm, then the originating authority should inform the receiving authority even if the child is not the subject of a formal plan.  This notification should be made to the MASH who are responsible for linking the child into any multi agency child exploitations arrangements.

When a child has been made the subject of a child in need plan, a child protection plan or any other formal plan as a result of concerns of extrafamilial harm and, as a result of that plan is housed in another local authority area, then the originating authority continues to be responsible for that child and their family for a period of three months following their move to another local authority area. 

A child’s risk is not erased by a change of postcode. Moves require active safeguarding, proactive planning, and professional curiosity about the new environment.

Key Responsibilities

When a young person in the youth justice system moves from one local authority area to another, there are specific procedures to ensure continuity of care and support.

Putting process into practice:

Safeguarding Children Who Move Across Local Authority Boundaries – Useful Links

https://www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk/media/fgbeptqm/5e-peer-group-mapping-guidance.pdf

https://yjlc.uk/resources/legal-updates/guidance-home-and-host-yjss-case-responsibility-out-area-children

It stresses that all practitioners need to be alert to bias and inequality that can affect decision making and to reflect on assumptions related to identity, background and behaviour. 

• Adultification – seeing children as more mature and less vulnerable than they are
• Diffusion of responsibility – waiting for someone else to act
• Source bias – judging information by who says it, not what it is
• Confirmation bias – focusing on information that supports what you already believe
• Risk aversion – avoiding uncertain options even when they may be better

While all sections of the matrix are relevant to young people, there are specific sections which have particular relevance to working with adolescents. Notably, these include:

• Education
• Sexual Abuse or Activity
• Police Attention
• Extra Familial Harm

This document should be used alongside the London Safeguarding Children Procedures to support thoughtful, and safe decision-making.

Safeguarding Adolescents in the MASH

In practical terms, the London Continuum of Need Matrix should be an essential point of reference from the outset, particularly in the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH).

This is especially important when working with adolescents, whose experiences often span multiple contexts and whose vulnerabilities may be harder to interpret.

Practitioners in the MASH should avoid applying thresholds solely on the basis of the referral content and instead remain alert to the full range of possible, sometimes overlapping, harms whether from family relationships, peer associations, exploitation, online activity, or community dynamics.  It is vital that practitioners in the MASH can see beyond a binary distinction between harm within the home and harm outside it