Children’s social care in England is undergoing once-in-a-generation reform.
Councils are preparing for major changes as the Families First Partnership programme and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 come into effect, reshaping how support is provided to children and families.
The ambition is clear: to provide effective help earlier and strengthen the way agencies work together to keep children safe.
For local leaders, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity.
As they plan for change, there’s a rare chance to step back, take stock and ask what can be done differently to improve outcomes for children and families.
That could mean freeing up practitioners’ time to focus on direct work with children and families, strengthening partnerships or investing in approaches that have been shown to make a difference.
That’s why, at the Youth Endowment Fund, we’ve published new national guidance for children’s services’ senior leaders and local safeguarding partnerships.
Drawing on the best available evidence, it sets out seven recommendations to help protect children from becoming involved in violence.
Importantly, the recommendations complement the direction of current reforms in England and offer practical ways to strengthen support for children at a time of significant change.
So, what do our recommendations include?
First, councils should make safeguarding children from extra-familial harm (EFH), including serious violence, a core strategic priority.
Too often, children facing significant harm outside the home are less likely to receive a child protection response than those experiencing harm within their family. Many receive no further action following assessment, despite facing serious risks.
As local areas implement reform, there’s an opportunity to ensure child protection thresholds are applied consistently, regardless of where harm is taking place.
Harm outside the home can often meet statutory child protection thresholds in its own right, and should trigger an appropriate safeguarding response.
We’re also calling for one pathway, one plan and one owner for children affected by EFH. In many areas, responses to harm outside the home have developed alongside statutory safeguarding arrangements rather than within them.
The result can be multiple meetings, assessments and protection plans running in parallel, creating complexity for practitioners and children alike.
Bringing these processes together into a single safeguarding pathway can reduce duplication, make better use of practitioners’ time and, most importantly, improve outcomes for children.
We’re also calling on councils to strengthen support for children in care, who face a heightened risk of violence, exploitation and involvement in the youth justice system.
Research shows that children in care are significantly more likely than their peers to receive a caution or conviction, making it particularly important that services focus on keeping them safe.
This starts with providing stable, supportive placements, ensuring care plans proactively identify and reduce the risks of extra-familial harm, and developing local protocols that reduce the risk of unnecessary criminalisation.
Taken together, these steps can help councils make the most of this moment of reform, and we hope our guidance provides a clear evidence base to support them.
- To read all seven of the Youth Endowment Fund’s recommendations and the evidence behind them, download the guidance from Youth Endowment Fund website.