"Adultification" is not a term defined in KCSIE 2026 or Working Together 2026. We checked both on 20 October 2026. But Working Together describes the problem. Paragraph 219 says some children who experience harm, including outside the home, are mistakenly seen as older than they are. This happens more often to Black children, and can also affect children from other minoritised backgrounds, children in the youth justice system and looked-after children. It can mean their needs are poorly understood and chances to help are missed.
The term became widely known in schools through the Child Q review, a local child safeguarding practice review published by the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership in March 2022. Child Q, a Black girl, was strip-searched by police at school. The review found that adultification bias was very likely to have influenced practitioners, and that she received a largely disciplinary response rather than a child protection one (paragraphs 5.71 to 5.74).
In practice, for schools:
- Ask whether you would respond the same way to a different child of the same age in the same situation.
- Treat a child involved in exploitation, violence or "bad behaviour" as a child first, and consider whether they are being harmed.
- Record and challenge language that describes children as adults, such as "streetwise" or "knew what they were doing".