Youth Safety Strategy 2025 to 2030

Islington's Youth Safety Strategy 2025 to 2030 sets out our priorities and actions to keep children and young people safe in Islington, supporting everyone to thrive, whatever their background.

Youth Safety Strategy 2025 to 2030

Nearly 1,000 residents shared their views with us directly to help shape our strategy for 2025 to 2030, including 450 young people. Watch a video about how we put the strategy together.

Together with professionals and parents, we have decided what we can do to keep improving youth safety in Islington so children and young people feel safe and cared for, whether they are at home, in education or outside in Islington. We’ll also continue to work hard to address the root causes of violence. 

Our four key areas are:

Identifying those at risk and preventing harm

• Helping local people take a more central role in improving safety where they live
• More services for young people where they are
• More female-only activities in youth clubs and on estates
• Working with Transport for London (TfL) and housing associations to improve lighting and CCTV in public spaces
• Making mental health support available as early as possible

Engaging and supporting children and young people, families and communities

• Keep supporting young people to gain employment skills, find work experience and paid opportunities
• Keep support for those at risk of involvement in violence
• Supporting parents through our Family Hubs and Parent Champions network 

Protecting and diverting those at risk from harmful behaviour

• Developing a relationship screening tool to help professionals work out who might be at risk of harm 

Targeting persistent and high-risk offenders

• Making police patrols more visible at key hot spots and at the right times of day
• Working with communities to build trust and ways of sharing information

What we did in 2020 to 2025

We work closely with police and health services, and the voluntary and community sector. Between 2020 and 2025, together we made sure fewer young people went into care and reduced youth crime and youth violence from 2019. We also worked together to support those in need and raised awareness and increased understanding of the complex issues that young people face.

Between 2020 and 2025, we:

• developed three family hubs
• made mental health services part of wider youth services 
• worked with specialists to stop exploitation and violence against women and girls 
• trained teachers, professionals and community members on issues such as trauma-informed support, neurodiversity, online safety and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
• achieved ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted in 2025 for our Children’s Services and from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation in 2024 for the quality of the Youth Justice Service

We know there is much more to do to address the root causes of violence. The devastation caused by youth violence to parents, siblings, other family members, friends and the wider community must stop.