The revised Working Together guide – context and implications

Working Together to Safeguard Children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children (Working together), the statutory guidance for local authorities and other agencies working with children, was completely revised in April 2013.

Working Together is the key piece of statutory guidance issued under section 7(1) of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 which provides a clear framework for how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and how practitioners should conduct the assessment of children.

The thrust of government guidance and thinking around interagency working has been clear for several years – all organisations working with children and families share a commitment to safeguard and promote children’s welfare which should be underpinned by a statutory duty or duties. This requires good communication, co-operation, collaboration if not integration, with and between agencies.

The most recent revised guidance replaces:

• Working Together to Safeguard Children (2010)
• The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families (2000); and
• statutory guidance on making arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children under section 11 of the Children Act 2004 (amended 2007)

Themes

One of the recurring themes in the professional, academic and political evaluation of social work practice in the last two decades or more has been the concern that social work has become too prescriptive. It is in this context that t