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An inspection of youth justice work with children and victims in Hounslow

Published:

Foreword (Back to top)

This inspection is part of our programme of inspections across youth justice services (YJS) in England and Wales.1 In this inspection, we have inspected and rated work with children and victims in Hounslow YJS across two broad areas: the quality of work done with children working with the YJS and the quality of work done with victims.

Overall, Hounslow YJS was rated as ‘Requires improvement’.

In achieving positive change for children, we found that staff and managers were proactive in involving them, identifying their strengths and capturing their views. Practitioners took time to understand children and talked to them about their lived experiences. It was also positive to see the prioritisation of building trusting relationships with children as part of the planning process.

However, the YJS had experienced a time of change within the management structure, and we saw delays in the allocation of work with children which impacted on the quality of assessing activity. Additionally, assessing and delivery of interventions to keep the child and community safe needed to improve. We found that the understanding of children’s risks of exploitation and contextual safeguarding approaches needed development. Assessing activity did not sufficiently identify the concerns or analyse the support and interventions needed to keep the child safe, and there needed to be greater analysis of previous concerning behaviours and potential risks when considering how to keep the community safe. Child-centred and trauma-informed approaches to working with children required strengthening and there needed to be greater opportunities for children to attend activities and interventions that were adapted to meet their needs, innovative, and tailored to engage them. 

While the YJS had positive relationships with its partners, we found that the quality of partnership working was variable. Provision for post-16 education, training, and employment was strong. The importance of education was recognised. However, as a result of gaps in a YJS education post, there were missed opportunities in work with schools to ensure that provision was meeting children’s needs. By contrast, there was excellent provision from health services, and healthcare workers supported practitioners in developing plans for how best to engage children.

Work with victims was a significant strength and took an individualised, responsive, and sensitive approach. The YJS understood the importance of high-quality provision for victims and was passionate and committed to improving its offer. However, service leaders acknowledged that they needed to develop the strategic oversight of work with victims further, and improve analysis, evaluation, and feedback from victims. This inspection makes a number of recommendations to enable the YJS to improve further.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started November 2025Score 5/12
Overall ratingRequires improvement

Work with children

2.1 AssessingInadequate
2.2 PlanningGood
2.3 Implementation and deliveryRequires improvement

Work with victims

V1 Work with victimsGood

Recommendations (Back to top)

As a result of our inspection findings, we have made eight recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will have a positive impact on the quality of youth justice services in Hounslow. This will improve the lives of the children in contact with youth justice services and better protect the public.

Hounslow Youth Justice Service should:

  1. improve assessing and delivery to ensure consistent and high-quality activity to keep children and communities safe
  1. strengthen the quality and consistency of management oversight so that it drives improvements in the quality of assessing and delivery activity
  1. make sure that children supervised by the service are supported in their schooling and are having their educational needs met.

Hounslow Youth Crime Management Board should:

  1. with the Metropolitan Police, review the out-of-court resolutions available to enable Hounslow children equal access to diversion opportunities
  1. prioritise the strategic oversight of work with victims and ensure that there is accurate analysis, evaluation, and consistent management oversight in place
  1. review the structure of victim work within the service and ensure that it is sufficiently resourced to drive improvements and deliver high-quality work to victims
  1. work with the Metropolitan Police to get a better understanding of the profile and diversity needs of victims, and develop a detailed analysis of why some victims do not consent to having their information shared 
  1. continue to strengthen and develop the victim offer by including the voice of victims to inform service delivery.

Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Hounslow YJS over a period of a week, beginning 03 November 2025. We inspected cases where the YJS had started work with children subject to bail or remand, court resolutions, or out-of-court resolutions between 05 May 2025 and 04 July 2025. We also conducted 14 interviews with case managers.

We inspected the organisational arrangements for work delivered with victims and looked at cases where the YJS had undertaken contact with victims between 04 November 2024 and 05 September 2025. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers responsible for the delivery of this work.

Hounslow is a diverse London borough, which includes both affluent suburbs and areas that have high levels of poverty and deprivation. It has a population of 288,000 people, with 44 per cent of the population’s ethnicity being White and 56 per cent other ethnicities, with Asian, Asian British, or Asian Welsh being the largest group, at 37 per cent. There are 34,000 children aged 10–19, with 33 per cent under the age of 16 living in households with either absolute or relative low incomes, compared with 30 per cent for London.

The YJS is part of adolescent services which are located within Hounslow’s child safeguarding service, alongside family help and protection, safeguarding and quality assurance, and corporate parenting services. The head of adolescent services has responsibility for the YJS, and also the social care adolescent team, the adolescent support and prevention team, and the social work team at Feltham Young Offender Institution. At the time of the inspection, the YJS team manager who specifically managed the YJS was in an acting-up capacity, and during their short period in post had had a positive impact on practice. There were also several staff in temporary acting-up management roles. The YJS was overseen by the youth crime management board (YCMB), which was chaired by the executive director of children and adult’s services. The YJS was co-located in a large corporate building alongside the wider adolescent service. Children were mainly seen at the office or at their homes, and practitioners had limited access to community venues. 

Both the YJS and the adolescent support and prevention team managed children subject to out-of-court resolutions. Children were assessed prior to the out-of-court resolution panel, and if the child received a diversion outcome or a standalone youth caution, they were transferred to the adolescent support and prevention team. Practitioners in this team included experienced youth justice workers, and children continued to be able to access specialist support from the YJS.

The YJS had a strong healthcare offer for children and families which included youth liaison and diversion; child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS); speech, language, and communication; and substance misuse. The work with post-school-age children was positive, with children being motivated and supported to engage with suitable education, training, and employment opportunities. However, the service did not have a specific education link role, and inspectors found that there were missed opportunities to gather information from schools. We saw instances where a fuller analysis and greater understanding of children’s educational circumstances and experience of school were needed to ensure that children were supported to have their educational needs met.

The delivery of work with victims was a significant strength and we heard examples of work with victims which took an individualised and sensitive approach. The service, alongside the community safety partnership, had also been proactive in working with corporate victims, and inspectors met the managers from local retail shops who were experiencing antisocial behaviour from children in the area. It was evident that a positive relationship had been built with local businesses, as they tried to work together to reduce the number of incidents in the local area. Inspectors met individuals from the local police, sports organisations, and voluntary services who worked alongside the community safety partnership and the adolescent support and prevention team, and explained the outreach work they were providing in the local community to help build relationships. This included Brentford Community Sports Trust, ‘Rise and Thrive’, which delivered activities at the Hanworth Centre Hub, Reach Academy outreach work, the ‘Star Player’ organisation, and the Violence Intervention Programme. We saw an example of one child being involved with the organisation ‘Perfectly Imperfect’. These services provided a range of activities to improve the health and wellbeing of the local community. This included an outreach service provided by people with lived experience of the criminal justice service. 

At the time our inspection was announced, the YJS was working with 46 children subject to a community sentence, one child on remand, seven children on bail support, three children subject to a youth conditional caution, and two children subject to a youth caution. The profile of children included: 63 per cent from a Black, Asian, and minority ethnic heritage; 11 per cent girls; 20 per cent with an education, health, and care plan (EHCP) or special educational needs and disability support; and 44 per cent with substance misuse issues. Nine per cent were care-experienced children living within the area and four per cent were care-experienced children living outside the area; seven per cent had a child protection plan; and 20 per cent had a child in need plan.

During our inspection, we heard about the work that the service was undertaking with its early intervention offer, and its efforts to identify children at the earliest opportunity. However, at the time of the inspection, Hounslow did not have the use of Outcome 22 2for suitable ‘no comment’ and silent interviews, despite the police having piloted it in other London areas. Although the numbers had increased on the previous year, the first-time entrant rate was 116 per 100,000 of the 10–17 age population of Hounslow YJS, which was below the rate for the London area between January 2024 and December 2024. There had been a decrease in the YJS reoffending rate, which was 37.3 per cent between January 2023 and December 2023, compared with 32.2 per cent for England and Wales. In our case inspection, we found an instance where a child had been remanded to custody for one day before receiving a bail support package and a community sentence. The service indicated that it was intending to complete a review, so that the partnership could understand and learn from the factors contributing to this situation.

Domain two: Work with children (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at 15 cases where the YJS has worked with children subject to bail, remand, community sentences, resettlement, or out-of-court resolutions.

2.1. AssessingRating
Assessing is well-informed and personalised, effectively analysing how to achieve positive change and keep children and the community safe.Inadequate

Our rating3 for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?73%
keep the child and the community safe?47%

In the majority of inspected cases, assessing activity to achieve positive change was detailed and comprehensive. The active participation of children was promoted and there was clear evidence of including children and capturing their views as part of the assessment process. We found that practitioners were proactive in involving children and identifying their strengths and motivations, which they used well in informing their assessing activity.

Practitioners used the weekly specialist meeting to collate information from other agencies to inform their assessing activity. This included healthcare; speech, language, and communication; substance misuse; and victim information. Assessing was informed by police intelligence packs and information from early help and children’s social care to help provide a holistic picture of the child’s strengths and needs. We saw an example of where the rapport established between the child, the practitioner, and the social worker had enabled a fuller understanding of the child’s vulnerability which was appropriately considered in the assessing activity.

Although the YJS told us that they had an education lead, this individual was not available at the time of the inspection. Inspectors found missed opportunities to link with schools and gather information. We saw instances where a fuller analysis and greater understanding of children’s educational circumstances and experience of school were needed. This was evident during a multi-agency case discussion, where, despite numerous changes in school placements and incidents that had happened in school, we saw limited understanding and consideration of the child’s educational experiences across the partnership.

Practitioners took time to understand the children in their care. We found that they had talked to children about their lived experiences and considered their diverse needs in most cases. We also found instances where practitioners had explored children’s faith and heritage and demonstrated recognition of the importance of these to a child’s identity. However, this was not consistent in all cases. Understanding how children’s culture and heritage influenced their sense of identity and how trauma impacted on their emotional wellbeing needed to inform assessing activity to a greater degree.

Inspectors found examples of the high priority given by practitioners to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with parents and carers, which enabled them to get a better understanding of children’s familial context and wider networks. However, this was not consistent across all the cases we inspected.

Assessing activity included healthcare practitioners screening children’s emotional mental health and wellbeing; speech, language, and communication; and substance misuse needs. Healthcare workers engaged children and families proactively, and worked with them to identify children’s needs, as well as delivering interventions, offering consultations to practitioners and supporting access to appropriate services, as needed. They worked closely with YJS practitioners, and we found that children’s healthcare needs were fully explored as part of the assessing activity. We found that practitioners were confident in recognising children with neurodiversity needs and the impact this had on their current behaviours. However, information about children’s special educational needs and their EHCPs was not always understood or used effectively to assist in assessing activity.

The quality of assessing activity for the safety of the child and the community was variable. While the YJS had positive relationships with its partners and there were procedures and pathways for sharing information, this did not always translate into sufficient practice. We found instances where information was not consistently utilised, updated, or analysed in assessing activity, and missed opportunities to explore the safety and wellbeing of children – for example, those who were missing education, being home schooled, and experiencing isolation.

It was not always evident that the YJS understood children’s risks of exploitation or considered contextual safeguarding approaches. Assessing activity did not sufficiently identify the concerns or analyse the support and interventions needed to keep the child safe. We saw examples where information about children’s activities in the community had not been appropriately analysed or understood, and opportunities had been missed to identify the child’s vulnerability to being exploited.

In too many cases, the potential risks to keeping the community safe were not sufficiently analysed and did not always consider appropriately previous concerning behaviours. We found a lack of understanding of how potential changes in children’s behaviour needed to be addressed to keep the community safe. For example, violent behaviour in school was not considered consistently, in terms of the risk posed to other children in the school, and harmful sexual behaviours and the emergence of domestically abusive behaviours were not always analysed appropriately.

However, it was positive to see that assessing the needs and safety of victims was considered in most relevant cases. Inspectors found examples of practitioners and the restorative justice officer (RJO) working together to consider victims’ views and wishes, and opportunities for restorative justice approaches.

Management oversight did not meet the needs of the case in the majority of the cases inspected, and we found instances where the limited oversight impacted on the quality of services that children received. In the months before the inspection, the YJS had experienced a time of change within the management structure, and a number of staff were in acting up in management positions. We saw delays in the allocation of work and drift in managing children’s cases which impacted on the quality of assessing activity. Management oversight was focused on processes, rather than identifying concerns in some of the children’s cases or prioritising the quality of assessing activity. As the management structure stabilises, the YJS needs to ensure that it prioritises proactive and robust approaches to management oversight arrangements.

2.2 PlanningRating
Planning is well-informed, holistic, and personalised, focusing on how to achieve positive change and keep children and communities safe.Good

Our rating4 for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?67%
keep the child and community safe?67%

Planning built on children’s strengths, created opportunities for change, and was responsive to their needs. It showed that the practitioners knew the children in their care well, considered their personal circumstances, and understood their motivations. We found examples of practitioners considering children’s neurodiversity needs and learning styles as part of the planning activity. However, the range of children’s diversity needs was not considered consistently and there were some missed opportunities to understand and incorporate children’s lived experience and heritage.

It was encouraging to see that building a trusting relationship with children was integral to the planning process. We saw a clear focus on this, and examples where mentors were utilised to facilitate children’s engagement. However, in too many cases, plans had been presented to the child rather than co-produced with them. Additionally, the YJS did not engage parents and carers sufficiently proactively in the planning process or ensure that families continued to be involved when plans were reviewed and changed.

In most cases, practitioners knew which wider support services were available for children to access in their local community when their involvement with the YJS ended. Inspectors noted some positive examples of practitioners planning with the child for the early revocation of orders based on the progress that the child had made.

The relationship between the YJS and schools was variable and the responsibility to maintain positive relationships with schools lay with practitioners, in the absence of an identified specialist education link worker. We found that some practitioners were confident in advocating for children and their families with educational establishments. There was also a framework to support children in their educational provision through the fair access panel. However, we saw examples of planning which did not support children back into education provision. The YJS did not have a sufficient understanding with schools about the specific needs of youth justice children, or do enough to support schools to build stronger relationships with the service.

We found strong provision for post-16 education, training, and employment. The careers worker and practitioners considered how to prepare and motivate children to help them to engage with these opportunities. An example in a multi-agency case discussion showed how the workers had liaised with different education, training, and employment providers to ensure that the child was offered various options, including an apprenticeship and a job.  

The strong provision from healthcare professionals and the screening process helped support planning activity. We found that healthcare workers supported practitioners in developing plans for how best to engage children, and saw examples of the positive impact of speech, language, and communication assessments on understanding children’s needs. Priority pathways to access mainstream health services were in place and we found examples where exit planning had considered voluntary interventions offered by the speech, language, and communication therapist, alongside CAMHS, to continue to offer support to a child and their family.

Planning to keep the child and community safe was variable. In too many cases, planning did not recognise how to keep children safe from potential exploitation. We found that the signs that a child might be vulnerable were minimised, and that greater investigative activity was needed to be assured that children were safe.

We saw practitioners seeking updates about children and their families from other professionals and information shared by agencies in various multi-agency meetings, to make sure that planning stayed relevant to the child’s current situation. There were some examples of joint planning with children’s social care services, through attendance at multi-agency statutory meetings, and practitioners had a clear understanding of the referral pathways into early help and children’s social care services. The YJS had its own risk management meeting structure through the child and community safety meeting. However, we found that there was an inconsistent understanding of the process and purpose of the meeting, and it was not clear how the discussion and any resulting actions positively impacted on children’s risk management planning.

Practitioners had been trained in restorative justice practice and victim work, and this was a standing item on the team meeting agenda. We found that, in nearly all relevant cases, the victim’s needs and wishes, and opportunities for restorative justice were considered as part of the planning activity. This was also supported by the RJO attending specialist and panel meetings, alongside regular communication with the practitioners.

2.3 DeliveryRating
High-quality, well-focused, personalised, and coordinated services are delivered, achieving positive change and keeping children and communities safe.Requires improvement

Our rating 5 for delivery is based on the following key questions:

Does the delivery of well-focused, personalised and co-ordinated services:% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?60%
keep the child and the community safe?53%

Practitioners knew the children and their families well and we saw the priority that they gave to developing and maintaining effective working relationships with children, encouraging them to participate and engage. Practitioners also developed positive working relationships with parents and carers. Feedback from the children we spoke to emphasised how important they found their relationship with their YJS practitioners and how much they had been supported and helped by them.

Child-centred and trauma-informed approaches to working with children was not consistently evident, although in most cases practitioners considered children’s motivation and diversity needs. Due to changes in staffing and the reallocation of cases, there were gaps in the contact with children, which contributed to some engagement issues. In these instances, efforts to support engagement did not take place quickly enough, which impacted on children’s progress. 

Practitioners had a good understanding of the services available to support children, and these included education, training and employment; healthcare; substance misuse; CAMHS; and speech, language, and communication provision. The health priority pathway resulted in access to timely support and the offer of interventions to help children with mental health, emotional wellbeing, and substance misuse. When speech, language, and communication issues were identified, there was a clear process to access timely provision. Practitioners could also access fast-track youth counselling services to support children’s emotional regulation. In the multi-agency case discussion, we saw the youth justice liaison and diversion worker, the CAMHS worker, the speech, language, and communication therapist, and the substance misuse worker trying proactively to engage the child.

The importance of education was recognised; however, for school-aged children, we found that some opportunities had been missed to work with schools to ensure that provision was meeting children’s needs. For post-school-age children, we found that the careers worker and practitioners were working proactively with children to keep them motivated. They liaised with education, training, and employment providers and advocated for children so that they had access to a range of opportunities.   

There was a framework to support children transitioning to the Probation Service. The YJS-seconded probation support officer had access to both case management systems, so that information could be shared, and meetings with practitioners were held to discuss potential transitions. Children who transitioned were supported by the probation services officer, who coordinated introductory meetings with the supervising probation officer and the YJS practitioner. 

Inspectors were informed of multi-agency operations to respond to community safety incidents, including offering reassurance to communities after incidents had occurred. We heard of examples of agencies working together following incidents of antisocial behaviour in particular areas, and there was a focus across the partnership to develop collaborative responses when working with children in their local communities.

However, although there were structures and processes to support work across the wider partnership, these did not always seem to be clearly coordinated, and it was not consistently clear who was delivering which interventions. There was sometimes a sense of agencies working within their own remits and timescales, rather than seeing the holistic picture for the child and their family. We found that work with children’s social care services was not consistently joined up and there were examples of work with children and families ending because another agency was involved, rather than interventions being based on the needs of the child and family. We saw instances where children had not been clear about the roles of the professionals supporting them, and a cohesive and coordinated approach, which children and families understood better, was needed. Recognising child exploitation and working together across the partners to share information, identify risks, and understand the process if concerns were identified was also an area which needed strengthening.

The interventions identified in children’s plans were mainly delivered consistently. We saw various structured interventions that practitioners could offer children, and these were discussion based and tailored to each child. There was evidence of practitioners delivering programmes which included weapon awareness, victim awareness, and conflict resolution sessions. However, we found that access to positive activities and community reparation was limited. There were few opportunities for children to attend activities and interventions that were adapted to meet their needs, innovative, and tailored to engage them. Children were mainly seen at home or in the corporate council building, so identifying places and spaces where they felt safe, and their engagement could be maximised, was difficult.

However, at the time of the inspection, the activities coordinator was developing projects and interventions that would enable children to be matched to activities based on their interests and hobbies and promote engagement. These included an Assessment and Qualifications Alliance approved bicycle project, a river project which involved environmental work looking at habitats and heritage, a food bank, a mental health charity, and sports programmes.

Inspectors found that the delivery of services to keep children and communities safe was inconsistent, especially when considering the delivery of interventions to address children’s vulnerability and exploitation risks. We saw examples where escalating concerns about children’s vulnerability in the community had not led to interventions being adapted to explore their sense of safety or risk of potential exploitation. We also found that work to keep communities safe was not always responsive to the emergence of new concerns, behaviours, or offences. However, we saw a positive example where police intelligence had been acted on appropriately when concerns of increased risk towards others had become apparent, which led to changes in the interventions delivered, and appropriate responses to mitigate safety concerns.

Work with victims (Back to top)

We took a detailed look at nine victim cases where the YJS has offered a service to victims who have consented for their information to be shared.

Work with victimsRating
Work with victims is high-quality, individualised, and responsive, driving positive outcomes and safety for victims.Good

Our rating 6 for work with victims is based on the following key questions:

V 1.1 Is work with victims’ high quality, individualised, and responsive? 

V 1.2 Do organisational arrangements and activity drive a high-quality, individualised, and responsive service for victims? 

Strengths

  • Work with victims was a priority in the youth justice service strategic plan for 2024–2027.
  • The board had oversight of victim work and board members were developing their understanding of restorative practice.
  • The board received presentations, updates, and case studies to give them a better understanding of victims’ experiences and the work of the YJS.
  • The YJS had reviewed its restorative justice and restorative approaches, and victim work policy and procedure, which set out the arrangements and parameters for the delivery of restorative processes and work with victims.
  • There was a full-time RJO, who had experience of restorative justice approaches and working with victims and had completed restorative justice training.
  • The RJO attended the board to represent the views of victims and keep board members up to date with victim work.
  • There was clarity regarding the arrangements for gaining consent from victims and the sharing of victim details.
  • Contact with victims was prompt and comprehensive, providing sufficient information to enable victims to decide how they wished to engage.
  • Practitioners were passionate and committed to their work and motivated to provide a high-quality service to victims which was responsive to their needs.
  • A victim assessment was completed with all victims. The RJO understood the importance of assessing the safety of the victim, and this was included in the assessment.
  • Support to victims was not time limited, and ongoing support was based on the victim’s needs.
  • Children who were victims could access the same services and activities as those who had offended.
  • There were many examples of work with victims using an individualised, responsive, and sensitive approach.
  • The RJO signposted and appropriately referred victims to other services.
  • The YJS was developing its reparation activities, so that victims would have a better choice when considering options for indirect reparation.
  • There was evidence of community-based victim initiatives and partnership work, and links with the community safety partnership.
  • Positive examples were given of work that was taking place with corporate victims.
  • The views of victims were sought through an online survey, and all victims were invited to a feedback and advisory group.

Areas for improvement:

  • The service did not produce a local profile report with details of victims of youth crime in Hounslow, and so no demographic analysis of the victim cohort was being monitored by the management board. As there was no analysis or understanding of victims’ diversity needs, it was not clear what was needed by the YJS and partners to address and provide support for victims.
  • Information on victims’ protected characteristics was not gathered, analysed, or monitored to understand if certain victims were overrepresented.
  • There was no annual report that collated victim work performance data, and no action plan detailing how to improve victim work.
  • Monitoring of victim consent rates was limited and there had been no analysis of the reasons why some victims did not consent to their information being shared.
  • Information from victims’ assessments, including their sense of safety, was not collated or monitored to help gain a better understanding of their experiences.
  • Although safety assessments for victims were quality assured, no regular audits of work, using a consistent, victim-specific, quality-assurance audit tool, had been undertaken with them.
  • The RJO needed further strategic and operational support to make sure that victims had a high profile in the service, and that their needs and wishes were considered consistently by all staff across the organisation.
  • The RJO worker undertook work with complex and sensitive victim cases and would have benefited from access to clinical supervision.
  • The YJS acknowledged that a higher priority needed to be given to gathering victim feedback, engaging victims in the process, and using their feedback to develop and inform victim services.

Participation of children and their parents or carers (Back to top)

Hounslow YJS had a strong commitment to hearing from children and families. The Young people, Parent and Carer strategy 2024–2027 set out how the YJS wanted to create safe, inclusive, and empowering opportunities for children and their parents or carers to shape services through feedback and engagement. The purpose was to ensure that children were involved in decisions that affected them, while parents and carers were recognised as key partners in promoting positive outcomes and keeping their children safe.

Children had been attending the YCMB for some time. This included a child who had had a large number of arrests who had attended to reflect on their experiences. This had contributed to the board taking action to review the educational provision for YJS children. A corporate victim, child, and their parent had also attended the board to share their experiences of being involved in a restorative conference. The board had recently established a dedicated children’s group. The first meeting was held in July 2025 and feedback from these meetings would be included on the board agenda as a standing item from December 2025 onwards, with the activity’s coordinator working as a conduit between the groups and ensuring that children would have a voice in shaping future service delivery. 

The YJS contacted, on our behalf, children who were working with the YJS at the time of the inspection, to gain their consent for their information to be shared and to enable them and their parents or carers to feed back on their experience of the YJS. We provided a variety of opportunities for children and their parents or carers to participate in the inspection process (text survey, one-to-one meeting, focus groups, and video or telephone calls). We spoke to five children and seven parents or carers.

The feedback to inspectors from children and their parents or carers was overwhelmingly positive. They emphasised how important they found their relationship with the YJS practitioner and how much they had been supported and helped by them. All felt respected and valued by YJS staff and other people working with them. When asked about how well the YJS had helped them, all responded with either ‘quite’ or ‘very’ well. When asked how well their identity and needs were recognised, all responded ‘very well’. One child talking about what had worked well for them said:7

“I felt comfortable with my case manager and was able to share what I was thinking, and I felt that the case manager always listened”.

When asked what was good about working with the YJS, one child said:

“I have a really good relationship, my case manager is great, I love her, and they put me in my place, and I completely trust them”.

When asked how well the YJS communicated with them, one parent stated:

“I felt that the case manager consistently gave clear information especially around the court process, when I didn’t understand. The case manager kept me informed via texts, calls and in person. I felt that the case manager explained clearly around bail conditions so that I understood them”.

When asked how their identity and needs were recognised, another parent said:

“The case manager knows my child well and knows that their concentration is poor so sometimes needs to get up and walk around which the case manager lets them do so they are able to engage for longer”.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (Back to top)

Hounslow YJS had a strategic and operational commitment to understanding and meeting the diverse needs of children, victims, and staff. The local authority outlined its practices in the Hounslow equality, diversity, and inclusion procedures. The youth justice plan 2024–2027 outlined the ethnicity and overrepresentation of children who were known to the YJS during 2024/2025. Black children were overrepresented by 10 per cent, White children by 14 per cent, mixed heritage children by one per cent, and those identified as other by two per cent. This showed an increase in disproportionality for White children, with no change for Black children from the previous year and a decrease in mixed, other, and Asian children. 

Disproportionality and children’s characteristics were included in the performance and quality analysis reports, presented at the YCMB. The YJS demographic analysis in October 2025 reviewed disproportionality data on gender, ethnic origin, religion, and other protected characteristics. It found that the percentage of girls in the YJS cohort was 22 per cent, which was higher than the national benchmark figure of 14 per cent. Black or Black British children were nearly two and a half times more likely, and Asian or Asian British children nearly three times less likely, to be YJS experienced. Muslim children were overrepresented by nearly 60 per cent in the YJS, compared with the general Hounslow population, while Sikh and Hindu children had low levels of representation in the YJS cohort. The YJS was aware that the range of protected characteristics for children needed to be formally captured in its case management system, including gender reassignment, LGBTQ, and disability statuses.

The YJS had had a number of disproportionality action plans in place, and, through discussions at the board, had agreed that the most recent draft plan needed to be more focused and deliverable in its actions. It included the need for the police to introduce Outcome 22 in Hounslow, having piloted it in other parts of London. The police had presented an analysis of arrests of girls and completed an audit of stop-and-searches on Hounslow children, which was due to be presented to the board. 

The YJS had also undertaken an analysis of the number of children with safety and wellbeing concerns who were also known to children’s social care services. This found that many children with safety concerns were also managed by social care teams. While a joint protocol was in place between the agencies, our inspection highlighted the need for greater coordination and cohesiveness when working together.

The specialist meeting led by healthcare professionals enabled practitioners to be responsive to children’s emotional mental health and wellbeing and neurodiversity needs. Within a multi-agency case discussion, we heard of how sessions had been adapted and were interactive to meet children’s learning styles. However, we found that, for YJS children with an EHCP, these had not been used to inform cohesive planning arrangements to support them to stay in education. There was also limited work carried out with schools to ensure that children were monitored and supported.

As part of this inspection, we considered how the service responded to the diverse needs and protected characteristics of children and victims. Recording of protected characteristics of victims was clear in nearly all inspected cases and contact with victims was informed by an understanding of their individual needs.

In the inspection of work with children, we found that assessing considered the child’s diversity needs sufficiently in most cases. Practitioners were confident in having conversations with children to understand their lived experiences, and by using a relational model with children, they were able to be responsive to meet individual needs.

Recording of the protected characteristics of children considered age, sex, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and disability consistently, and we found practice examples of interventions that were adapted and delivered to respond to their individual and diverse needs. We saw instances of practitioners taking on additional learning, to get a better understanding of the children they were working with and how best to offer emotional support.

Data annexe (Back to top)

Hounslow Youth Data Annexe (XLSX, 130 KB)

Press release (Back to top)

“Variable” work at Hounslow Youth Justice Service, rated ‘Requires improvement’

Further information (Back to top)

A glossary of terms used in this report can be found on our website.

This inspection was led by HM Inspector Pauline Burke, supported by a team of inspectors and colleagues from across the Inspectorate. We would like to thank all those who helped plan and took part in the inspection; without their help and cooperation, the inspection would not have been possible.

Footnotes (Back to top)

  1. There are two types of inspections as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales. Inspection of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) and inspection of youth justice services (IYJS). Further information about these inspections can be found on our website Youth Justice Services – HM Inspectorate of Probation ↩︎
  2. Where police defer prosecution until the accused has been given the opportunity to engage with an intervention activity. ↩︎
  3. The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
  4. The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
  5. The rating for the standard is driven by the lowest score of the key questions, which is placed in a rating band, indicated in bold in the table. A more detailed explanation is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
  6. The rating for the victims’ standard is derived from the scores from case inspection for V 1.1 and the qualitative evidence for V 1.2. Case inspection scores and a more detailed explanation of the rating process is available on our website Standards and ratings – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
  7. Quotes are directly from children, parents, and carers. ↩︎