Working Together to Safeguard Children – March 2026 Updates Explained

The March 2026 update to Working Together to Safeguard Children (WTSC) introduces some of the most substantial changes in recent years. These revisions strengthen multi agency working, reinforce anti discriminatory practice, and clarify expectations for leaders, practitioners, and safeguarding partners.
For DSLs, senior leaders, and anyone with safeguarding responsibilities, understanding these updates is essential. Below is a clear breakdown of the key changes across each chapter and what they mean for day to day practice.

Chapter 1: A Shared Responsibility
The updated guidance places a stronger emphasis on creating inclusive, anti-discriminatory cultures across all organisations working with children. Leaders are now expected to take a more proactive role in shaping environments where racism, discrimination, and bias are actively challenged.
Practitioners are also expected to confidently identify and challenge discriminatory behaviour, ensuring that safeguarding practice is equitable and responsive to the experiences of all children.
The chapter also strengthens guidance on several types of harm, including abusive behaviour in intimate relationships, coercive control, hidden harms such as child sexual abuse (CSA), and teenage relationship abuse. This reinforces the need for practitioners to recognise subtle, complex, and less visible forms of abuse.

Chapter 2: Multi Agency Safeguarding Arrangements (MASA)
The 2026 update clarifies that MASA responsibilities explicitly include children who are looked after, ensuring they are fully considered within local safeguarding arrangements.
Key changes include clearer accountability structures for safeguarding partners, stronger expectations for analysing data to identify disproportionality and racism, reinforced requirements for effective data sharing, and a requirement for annual reports that demonstrate real impact on children and families. These changes aim to improve transparency, accountability, and the quality of multi-agency decision-making.

Chapter 3: Providing Help, Support and Protection
This chapter introduces a more integrated approach to supporting families. Family help now combines targeted early help and section 17 support, creating a more seamless offer with consistent practitioner relationships and a single family help plan led by a multi-disciplinary team.
The update also strengthens expectations around anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practice, recognising how racism, lived experience, and historical interactions with services influence engagement and trust.
Additional strengthened content covers domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, infant abuse, honour-based, faith-based or belief-based abuse, group-based exploitation, and online harms. The guidance reinforces that children may face multiple, overlapping harms, and practitioners must consider the full context of a child’s life.
Section 47 expectations have also been strengthened, with clearer requirements for robust multi-agency assessments, direct work with the child, and strategy discussions for child sexual abuse. The chapter emphasises that safeguarding and child protection apply to all children, and assessments should link to existing family help or care plans where appropriate.

Chapter 4: Organisational Responsibilities
This chapter clarifies the particular vulnerabilities of looked after children in certain settings and reinforces the link between care planning and child protection planning.
Key updates include stronger expectations on local authorities to ensure support and protection through the care plan, highlighted risks such as sexual exploitation, and a new paragraph addressing risks in residential settings. These changes aim to ensure that children in care receive consistent, high-quality safeguarding oversight.

Chapter 5: Learning from Serious Child Safeguarding Incidents
This chapter has been restructured to help safeguarding partners better understand how and when to make timely, accurate notifications and how to engage effectively in the learning process.
Key clarifications include requirements for notifications even if the names of child victims are not yet known, the inclusion of all children involved in notifications, guidance on notifying the death of a care leaver up to age 24, and guidance on notifying adults aged 18+ where childhood harm was not previously known. There is a confirmation that only the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel decides on National Reviews, with clear sequencing from serious incident notification through rapid review and local child safeguarding practice review. Expectations are clarified for learning from incidents that do not meet notification criteria, and the rapid review timeline is updated to 15 working days from the serious incident notification. These changes aim to improve consistency, transparency, and the quality of learning across the safeguarding system.

What These Changes Mean for DSLs and Leaders
The 2026 update significantly strengthens expectations around leadership, anti discriminatory practice, multi agency working, and contextual safeguarding. DSLs will need to:
• Understand the new family help model
• Recognise and challenge racism and disproportionality
• Confidently navigate strengthened CSA and Section 47 procedures
• Analyse safeguarding trends within their setting
• Ensure staff understand the updated WTSC guidance

Stay Compliant and Confident — Book Your DSL or DSL Refresher Training
High quality DSL training is now more essential than ever. Our DSL and DSL Refresher courses are fully aligned with the March 2026 WTSC updates. We provide practical, scenario based training delivered by experienced safeguarding professionals, helping you embed these changes confidently within your organisation.
👉 Book your DSL or DSL Refresher Training here