Dr Ali Body,
Director of Research and Development
Estimated reading time 5 minutes
As a parent, I find myself thinking a lot about what “safety” really means for my two sons growing up today. Eco-anxiety sits quietly in the background - shaping how I read the news, how I think about their future, and how I see the role of schools. Not just as places of learning, but as places where children should feel secure, supported, and able to make sense of an uncertain world. That raises a bigger question: are we equipping schools to do that?
The UK government has published proposed revisions to the Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) guidance, which sets out how education settings in England should safeguard children. The KCSIE guidance is central to how schools approach safeguarding. But if the context children are growing up in is changing, then our understanding of safety needs to evolve too.
Right now, there is a rare and important window to re-shape the guidance that schools rely on - an opportunity to ensure they are supported not just to respond to risks as they arise, but to recognise and navigate the ones we know are already unfolding.
Recognising the importance of this moment, Global Action Plan brought together voices from across climate, education and safeguarding - researchers, teachers, practitioners and campaigners - to reflect on the consultation and how we respond individually and collectively.
The conversation wasn’t just about our individual submissions, but about how we all collectively support schools to be safe, resilient places - and how we mobilise wider engagement, from educators to parents, so that this consultation truly reflects the realities children are living with. Because when it comes to safeguarding, a handful of voices isn’t enough - we need a chorus loud enough to be impossible to ignore. Add your voice here by responding to the consultation.
Why a climate lens matters
Our conversation in the roundtable started where it must - with children and young people themselves. As our Good Life Schools programme - which works with students to explore wellbeing, sustainability and their relationship with the natural world - shows, they are already aware of climate change. They are hearing fragments of information, they’re noticing shifts in the world around them, they’re asking questions – some big, some small. They are trying to make sense of something complex and uncertain, often without the space or support to process and understand it.
What came through strongly in the roundtable discussion is that silence doesn’t protect children - it leaves them alone with it. When adults avoid the topic, whether through discomfort, lack of confidence or fear of getting it wrong, children don’t stop thinking about it. Instead, they fill the gaps themselves, often with anxiety, sometimes with mis- or dis-information found online or in the playground.
Zooming out, this becomes a question about schools. If safeguarding is about creating environments where children feel safe, supported and able to thrive, then schools need to be equipped to respond to the realities children are facing and bringing with them. Climate change is not a separate issue sitting alongside safeguarding - it is shaping the context in which safeguarding happens. As one contributor described, it is a “threat multiplier”, intensifying risks around mental health, inequality and wellbeing.
And at a system level, this raises a more fundamental challenge. Safeguarding is meant to anticipate harm, reduce risk and strengthen protective factors. But when the risks are already visible and escalating - from eco-anxiety to disruption caused by extreme weather - then the framework itself needs to evolve.
What we need to think about
There were so many insights from across the group, but a few have really stayed with me.
The first is that safeguarding needs to be proactive. The KCSIE guidance is clear about schools’ duties to protect children from harm - but what happens when the risks are already visible and growing? From eco-anxiety to extreme weather disrupting home and school lives, these are not hypothetical concerns. They are happening now.
The second is that schools need support to do this well. Teachers and staff can’t be expected to navigate climate-related safeguarding issues without the right training, language and confidence. We heard how staff discomfort or lack of climate literacy can unintentionally create gaps in support - again, leaving children to fill those gaps themselves.
And the third is something that felt both simple and profound: connection matters. Whether it’s connection to nature, to culture, or to community, these are not “nice to haves” - they are protective factors. They help children build resilience, process emotions, and feel grounded in an uncertain world.
Together with mental health, there is also a growing case to recognise environmental factors such as air quality as safeguarding issues. For example, schools are expected to be physical safe spaces for children – but for the 1.1 million children in the UK currently receiving treatment for asthma, safety is also about the air they breathe. Poor air quality can trigger asthma attacks and contributes to one of the leading causes of emergency hospital admissions among children. As pollution continues to affect air quality, this raises important questions about how safeguarding frameworks account for environmental health risks within and around schools.
Bringing a climate and nature lens to safeguarding means recognising not only the emotional impacts, but also the physical conditions that shape children’s safety and wellbeing every day.
What you can do?
Alongside these broader reflections, there is also a more practical question: where might people focus their responses within the KCSIE itself? One of the clearest entry points is the mental health section (Section 3, p.21). Yet this is also where the current guidance feels least developed in relation to climate-related distress. Eco-anxiety and climate anxiety are not named, and there is little in the way of practical support for teachers to recognise or respond to these experiences - in pupils or in themselves. While the organisations signposted within KCSIE offer valuable mental health support, there is still relatively little that speaks directly to climate-related anxiety.
This absence is reflected more widely. Eco-anxiety does not currently appear in the Department for Education’s list of emerging areas for consideration (Section 9, p.38), suggesting it has yet to be fully recognised at a policy level. If that is to shift, this feels like an important place to focus attention within the consultation. It also points to a broader challenge - and opportunity - for those of us working across climate, education and safeguarding: to be clearer, more joined-up, and more confident in how we evidence and articulate the role of eco-anxiety within safeguarding frameworks.
Environmental health factors can also be raised as a safeguarding issue by referencing the sections on medical conditions and general safeguarding responsibilities, or by using the open questions in Section 9 (particularly “is there anything missing from KCSIE...”) to highlight environmental health risks such as air pollution.
What happens next
The consultation is open until 22nd April, which means there is still time to influence what safeguarding looks like in schools from 2026 onwards.
This is a moment we need to take seriously.
Our roundtable conversation wasn’t about adding another burden onto schools - it was about recognising reality, and making sure safeguarding reflects the world children are actually growing up in.
And this isn’t abstract. It’s about whether children are supported not just with the risks we’ve always recognised, but with the ones we know are rapidly intensifying.
If safeguarding is about keeping children safe, then it must evolve to meet that challenge.
And that starts with all of us - responding, speaking up, and ensuring this consultation reflects what children really need.
Right now, you can help shape what safeguarding looks like - add your voice to the consultation.
Further information
