255 - Information Sharing Is Changing: What Early Years Needs to Know

Um, this week's podcast is about information sharing, 'cause that's changing, and what I want to do is talk to you about what we need to know in early years.

So thinking about something that every DSL, every nursery manager, early, early years leader, preschool leader needs to know about because from September the 30th, 2026, there is a new statutory information sharing duty.

And I think this guidance probably tackles something that I've seen repeatedly when auditing settings and talking to practitioners, and that's about the nervousness about sharing information.

Can I actually tell them this? Do I need the parent's permission? Is this serious enough? What about GDPR? And perhaps the biggest one, which I hear all of the time, is I don't think it reaches the threshold yet.

Which, you know, I'm sure we hear that all of the time when we contact our safeguarding partners.

But anyhow, this new guidance is trying to make something very clear.

We shouldn't be waiting for a situation b- to become serious before we start putting the pieces of safeguarding together, that jigsaw piece of that child's life, which comes hand-in-hand with the new statutory framework that came out in, um, September, where we talked about what...

They've taken out the word significant harm, um, and just had harm.

So what's actually changed? The new guidance is called Information Sharing Duty: Statutory Guidance for Safeguarding Organizations and their Practitioners, and it explains the new information duty under the Section 16LA of the Children's Act 2004, introduced through the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act, just in case you needed to know.

And this duty applies to scenarios arising from 30th of September, 2026.

And there's one sentence in this guidance that I really want early years practitioners to understand.

There does not have to be a particular statutory threshold met before relevant information can be shared.

I'm gonna say it again.

There does not have to be a particular statutory threshold met before relevant information can be shared.

You don't have to wait until something reaches a child protection threshold before information sharing becomes relevant.

That's the difference in this information sharing duty.

And the guidance specifically talks about early help, prevention, and unmet need, and I think that is incredibly, credibly important, really important, because safeguarding isn't just what happens when we're worried about a child, uh, when a child is experienced significant harm.

Safeguarding is also noticing the small things.

Those low level concerns, we should be sharing that information.

So for an example, you imagine you've got a three-year-old in your setting, and over the last couple of weeks, they've become quieter, they're unusually hungry in the morning, um, mom who normally brings them has started arriving late, child has occasionally been wearing the same clothes.

None of those things individually necessarily tell us what's happening, and this is where practitioners sometimes think it's not, it's not enough to refer.

But actually, that's the wrong question.

The question isn't necessarily is this enough.

It could be who else might hold another piece of that child's story, and that's really, really important because your setting might hold one piece, but your health visitor might hold another piece.

Your GP might hold another piece, and an older sibling from their school might hold another, and children's services might have another.