Bringing young people’s perspectives to youth safety

I’m very proud to announce the new Youth Safety Strategy for 2025–2030 — a milestone in our commitment to keeping children and young people safe in Islington and supporting every one of them to thrive, whatever their background.

While reducing knife crime, serious youth violence and offending remain key priorities, the strategy also focuses on maximising educational attainment, ensuring swift access to emotional wellbeing support, and creating opportunities that help young people thrive.

One of the most important aspects of the strategy is the involvement of young people themselves. It hasn’t just been made for them – it’s been made with them.

We spent the summer listening to 450 young people about what it’s like to live in Islington and how we can make changes so they feel safer, alongside 70 parents and carers and 100 professionals and volunteers who work with young people every single day. Through surveys and face-to-face focus groups, these insights helped build a clear picture of what needs to happen next, representing a shared vision for safety, wellbeing, and opportunity.

The strategy ensures our health and Young Islington teams and all our partners – from police and health services to the voluntary and community sector – are all working to shared goals and agreed actions.

Together, we achieved a lot in 2020-2025, ensuring fewer young people went into care and reducing youth crime and youth violence compared to 2019. But we know there is much more to do; one young person losing their life is one too many, and the devastation caused by youth violence – to parents, siblings, other family members, friends and the wider community – needs to stop.

In our engagement with young people we found knife crime and gangs still top their list of worries, and the new strategy outlines how we’ll continue to work to tackle these issues by steering vulnerable young people away from falling or being drawn into criminal lifestyles in the first place.

Early mental health support and improving the sense of safety in public spaces like housing estates and transport hubs is also a priority, as well as providing more female-only activities in youth clubs and on estates.

We’ll also continue to support young people gaining essential employability skills and work experience, support parents through our Family Hubs and Parent Champions networks, and work with police to ensure patrols are more visible at key hot spots and at relevant times of day.

We’re going to keep working hard to realise our vision of a truly child-friendly Islington, one that listens to and reflects on the views, concerns and ideas of our young people. This is how, together, we will make Islington safer for every child and young person. If you’d like to find out more about the Youth Safety Strategy 2025-2030, visit islington.gov.uk/YouthSafety