Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 says safeguarding partners should publish a threshold document setting out the local criteria for action in a way that is clear and easy to understand (paragraph 125). It should cover how to reach universal services and community-based early help, the criteria for referring to Family Help, the criteria for referral to children's social care under sections 47, 31 and 20 of the Children Act 1989, and procedures for exploitation, looked-after children, the youth secure estate and disabled children.
KCSIE 2026 asks governing bodies to understand the local criteria for action and make sure they are reflected in the school's own policies (paragraph 137), and expects DSLs to familiarise themselves with the document (paragraph 581).
Local variation. There is no national template. Areas call it a threshold document, a continuum of need, levels of need guidance or something similar, and they use different numbers of levels and different descriptors. Read your own area's version, not a neighbouring one, especially if your pupils live across more than one local authority.
What's changing. The DfE's Families First Partnership programme guide expects safeguarding partners to bring targeted early help and child in need into a single Family Help offer, and to reflect it in a refreshed threshold document, by March 2027. Some areas have already published new versions; others haven't yet.