Going ahead by supporting protected kids (8)
I believe the answer is:
forwards
'supporting protected kids' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'going ahead by' is the wordplay.
'going' becomes 's' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ahead' becomes 'forward' (synonyms).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
's' after 'forward' is 'FORWARDS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for forwards that I've seen before include "attackers" , "pack" , "Passes on" , "Ahead in time; in the normal order" , "In the normal sequence" .)