 safeguarding and inclusion education meetings and safeguarding partnership education safeguarding committees (Survey, South East Region). 76 7 Key messages As the policy announcements flagged throughout this report demonstrate, the new government has strongly signalled commitments to children and young people, social mobility and rebuilding decimated public services. The new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is the first legislation focused wholly on children’s needs and rights since 2017. ADCS’s Childhood matters (ADCS, 2024b) advocated the need to think, plan and work in the round with and for all children to address the ‘causes of causes’ of the vulnerabilities children experience. SP9 data adds to the body of evidence on how the cumulation of adverse child and family experiences increases the chances of lives becoming untenably difficult and directly contributes to children’s social care activity. This evidence underlines the imperative for a cross-governmental framework for policy development, decision-making and investment to equitably improve the life chances of all children and young people, regardless of where they live, their family background or circumstances. Preventative early help, safeguarding and protection and care are a continuum and require coordinated and sufficient resourcing across local authorities and safeguarding partners in health, education, housing, welfare, justice and immigration. The nine phases of SP research span 17 years of tracking safeguarding trends and the shape of the system and activity are markedly different in 2024 than in 2007. There is now significantly increased activity earlier on in the system via initial contacts at the front door of children’s social care and in universal as well as targeted early help. There is also