Launch of our new Support Levels Guidance - strengthening our collective approach to safeguarding

We are pleased to share that our new SLG is now live and available to view on the Kent Safeguarding Children Multi-Agency Partnership website. This threshold document has been developed jointly by partner agencies to support consistent, confident and timely decision-making across our collectively owned safeguarding system.

The updated guidance has been shaped by our shared learning, practice experience and the national requirements set out in the Families First reforms and the Children Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026.It reflects our collective ambition to intervene earlier, work more effectively together and ensure that children, young people and families receive the right help at the right time.

What is changing?

The new SLG provides a clearer, shared framework for identifying need and risk across all agencies. It strengthens our focus on early help and whole-family approaches and supports more consistent thresholds and decision-making. The SLG also aims to reduce any potential drift and delay in children and families receiving support and emphasises our multi-agency responsibility for safeguarding, rather than a reliance on single services.

The SLG is an interactive, practice-focused tool and has been designed as a practical and accessible guide for everyday use. As such the SLG is interactive and user-friendly, allowing practitioners to navigate easily between levels of need. It is also built around real-world practice considerations, not just policy descriptions and is intended to support professional judgement, not replace it.

A more fully interactive, digital version will be made available shortly, further enhancing usability and supporting practitioners in making timely, confident decisions.

What does this mean for all partner organisations?

As we implement this guidance, there are some important expectations for all agencies:

• Shared ownership - safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. Effective outcomes depend on our coordinated multi-agency working.
• Early intervention - there is an increased emphasis on identifying and responding to emerging needs at the earliest opportunity.
• Consistency in practice - applying the guidance to support aligned threshold decisions across Kent’s multi-agency partnership.
• Professional curiosity and challenge - continuing to work openly and constructively across organisational boundaries.
• Whole-family approach - ensuring that interventions consider the strengths, needs and contexts of the entire family.

What do you need to do now?

We ask all partner organisations to share the guidance widely within your teams and ensure all relevant staff are aware of it; to familiarise yourself with the framework and how it applies to your role and service. We also ask you to begin using the guidance in practice to inform your assessments, planning and decision-making and to embed the approach within your internal processes, supervision and quality assurance activities. Lastly, we encourage you to provide us with feedback to support our ongoing refinement and continuous improvement work: we recognise that safeguarding is a changing landscape and we need to be open and responsive to that in order to best meet children’s needs.

We recognise that this represents an important step forward in how we work together. By aligning our approaches and strengthening our shared understanding, we can improve both our collective safeguarding practice and our ability to meet statutory responsibilities. Most importantly, the SLG will help us to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and families.

We are all in this together, and your continued commitment to partnership working is essential for us to improve together.

Further support, including briefings, training information and the enhanced interactive SLG will follow shortly. If you have any questions or require further support, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the KSCMP.

KSCMP Lead Safeguarding Partners