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

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 Wandsworth 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, Wandsworth YJS was rated as ‘Good’.

Wandsworth YJS benefited from a mature strategic partnership and experienced and knowledgeable senior leaders. This, combined with a comprehensive, well-analysed data set and a robust practice assurance framework, informed and shaped the delivery of effective services for children and families. Practitioners were skilled, enthusiastic and motivated. They formed constructive and trusted relationships and knew their children well. A range of services and specialist provision enabled them to deliver meaningful interventions. The YJS was characterised by a culture of learning, development and improvement to achieve the best outcomes for children, families and victims.

There was a strong focus on restorative justice in work with victims. Skilled and passionate practitioners delivered high-quality interventions that were facilitated sensitively. However, the YJS lacked a broader, more diverse victim offer, and victims’ safety was not consistently considered, analysed or responded to. The understanding of victims’ protected characteristics and individual needs, and the response to these, were compromised by organisational barriers to effective information-sharing.  Strategic leadership, governance and oversight needed strengthening, and the collation and analysis of victim data was underdeveloped. Additionally, further work was required to understand the effectiveness of interventions. These factors needed prioritising to ensure the delivery of consistent high quality support for victims.

Assessing, planning and delivery were supported by effective collaboration with statutory and voluntary sector partners, and joint working with children and families. This ensured that children’s needs, strengths and safety were understood and responded to. Practitioners, YJS specialists and partnership staff worked collectively to engage children in education, training and employment, positive activities, and interventions that addressed risk and increased safety. Planning would benefit from being co-produced and child-centred, and improvement activity was required to ensure that work with children responded effectively to victims’ needs and wishes, and kept them safe. Management oversight also needed to be more consistent.

Diversity practice required development. While practitioners responded well to children’s neurodiverse needs, wider intersectional factors such as ethnicity, faith, culture and experiences of discrimination were not always fully explored or integrated into practice.

In this report, we have made 10 recommendations to enable the YJS to build on its strengths and improve the delivery of services to victims, children and families.

Martin Jones CBE

HM Chief Inspector of Probation

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Ratings (Back to top)

Fieldwork started February 2026

Score 8/12

Overall rating

Good

Work with children

2.1 Assessing	Good
2.2 Planning	Outstanding
2.3 Delivery	Good

Work with victims

V1 Work with victims

Requires improvement

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Recommendations (Back to top)

As a result of our inspection findings, we have made 10 recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will have a positive impact on the quality of youth justice services in Wandsworth. This will improve the lives of the children in contact with youth justice services and better protect the public.

The Wandsworth Youth Justice Service Management Board should:

1. drive and oversee improvement activity in work with victims to ensure a comprehensive, diverse and high-quality service for victims within the YJS and across the partnership
2. develop a comprehensive, analytical data set to inform and shape the direction and delivery of high-quality work with victims.

The Wandsworth Youth Justice Service should:

3. review and diversify the victim offer to ensure there are a broad range of services to meet victims’ needs
4. ensure there is sufficient capacity to develop, broaden and improve the victim offer, while maintaining the delivery of high-quality restorative interventions with victims
5. embed comprehensive, effective and consistent victim safety practice across all work with victims and children
6. improve planning to ensure it is collaborative with children and families
7. ensure there is consistent, high-quality practice across assessing, planning and delivery, which recognises, analyses and responds to the intersectionality of all children’s protected characteristics and individual needs
8. improve recording practice to consistently reflect the quality of work with children and victims
9. strengthen management oversight to ensure it is consistent and drives high-quality work with children and victims.

The Metropolitan Police should:

10. improve the quality of information shared with the YJS regarding victims’ individual needs and protected characteristics to facilitate a more personalised approach to initial contact with victims, enhance understanding of the victim profile, and inform service development and delivery.

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Background (Back to top)

We conducted fieldwork in Wandsworth YJS over a period of a week, beginning 02 February 2026. We inspected cases where the YJS had started work with children subject to bail or remand, court disposals or out-of-court resolutions between 04 August 2025 and 03 October 2025. We also conducted 12 interviews with case managers.² We inspected the organisational arrangements for work delivered with victims and looked at cases where the YJS had undertaken contact with victims between 03 February 2025 and 05 December 2025. We also conducted interviews with staff and managers who delivered this work.

Wandsworth is one of the larger inner London boroughs, based in the south-west of the city. It has a population of 337,655,³ 7.2 per cent (24,428) of which are children aged 10 to 17. It is an ethnically diverse borough, as 32.2 per cent⁴ of the population are of Black and global majority heritage, increasing to 49.2 per cent of 10–17-year-olds. At the time of the inspection announcement, Black and global majority children comprised 78.8 per cent of the YJS caseload, a significant over-representation. Annual local YJS data highlighted that most of these children were Black, Black British or of mixed heritage. In Wandsworth, 22 per cent of children have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) or receive special educational needs (SEN) support. This rises to 80.8 per cent for children working with the YJS. There are contrasting levels of wealth in the borough, with one in four residents living in poverty and 35 per cent of children affected by income deprivation. However, this rises to 84 per cent for YJS children. The YJS operates in a context characterised by complexity, vulnerability and intersectionality, and there is a strong focus on addressing structural inequality, racial disparity and promoting anti-racist practice.

The YJS was fully integrated into children’s services, which had a relational systemic practice model.⁵ This complemented the ‘children first’ principles and trauma-informed practice of the YJS. The service manager held responsibility for adolescent safeguarding and the multi-agency safeguarding hub. Adolescent safeguarding included the YJS, a statutory adolescent social work team, the edge of care service and Evolve, which provided intensive support to children experiencing or at risk of extra-familial harm and transitional safeguarding support for young adults up to 25 years old.

Strategic responsibility for the YJS was held by the service manager, supported by the director of children’s social care. Operational practice managers led two teams, made up of an advanced practitioner, case managers, specialist and seconded staff, and volunteers. The managers oversaw all operational work, and case managers held generic caseloads. Specialist YJS workers included a referral order and restorative justice lead, a reparation and intensive supervision and surveillance (ISS) coordinator, a parenting officer, an employment and training adviser, a substance misuse worker, a programme coordinator and a speech and language therapist (SaLT). Seconded staff included a probation officer, a high intensity nurse, a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) clinical team, a police sergeant who was shared across the basic command unit, and three police officers. There was also a performance analyst and a business support team.

The YJS was a well-resourced, multidisciplinary team that provided a range of services and interventions to meet the needs of children, families and victims. There was a strong health offer, which included a CAMHS clinical team made up of a principal clinical psychologist and two clinical psychologists, a high intensity nurse and a SaLT. These specialists provided a range of physical, psychological and therapeutic specialist assessments and interventions for children and families. These practitioners supported case managers and partners to provide tailored interventions and trauma-informed, neuro-affirmative support where required. CAMHS psychologists facilitated multi-agency case formulations based on enhanced case management.⁶ This enabled professional networks to have a shared understanding of children’s complex needs and vulnerabilities. It also created effective and sequenced intervention plans that were responsive to children’s needs and safety. Specialist health staff delivered specific group work and individual programmes. These included ‘Healthy Relationships’, which focused on consent, contraception, gender roles and stereotypes, and recognising unhealthy relationships; and ‘Inside Out’, which explored emotional regulation and wellbeing. Following investment by the YJS, the CAMHS team had been trained to provide neurodevelopmental assessments, given the long waiting times experienced in the local health pathways.

The YJS worked with a range of community and voluntary organisations, most notably Carney’s Community,⁷ whose ethos was based on ‘long-term, consistent, unconditional support with empathy’. Carney’s provided an inclusive, safe environment, where children engaged in activities such as boxing, bike workshops, a music/podcast suite, youth clubs and education and employability sessions. It also offered mentors for children facing significant vulnerabilities and barriers to achieving their goals. This provided them with sustainable community support that extended beyond their time with the YJS. The delivery model operated on a ‘virtuous cycle’ basis. This meant that, while support was free of charge, young people were asked to channel the positivity they had received into others, once they were ready. This had resulted in many young people volunteering, becoming mentors, joining the staff team or setting up their own community projects.

The YJS worked mainly with boys aged 15 to 17, of Black and global majority heritage. When the inspection was announced, the YJS was working with 52 children: 39 were subject to court-ordered interventions, seven to out-of-court resolutions, and six were involved in out-of-court assessment processes. First-time entrants had increased in the past year, which the YJS indicated could be attributed to improved quality and accuracy of data recording. The YJS had also reviewed the data to ensure prevention and diversion services were responsive to the emerging needs of children. The percentage of children who reoffended (19.5 per cent) and the reoffending rate (0.32) were significantly below the national average and decreasing. Data supplied by the YJS indicated that the use of custody was low, and there had been a downward trend since October 2023.  

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Domain two: Work with children (Back to top)

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

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

Our rating⁸ for assessing is based on the following key questions:

Does assessing sufficiently analyse how to:	% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?	87%
keep the child and the community safe?	73%

Assessing to achieve positive change was comprehensive. Practitioners knew the children they were working with well. They achieved this by gathering partnership information from agencies including children’s social care, the police, education, health, and in some instances specialist assessments, for example speech and language. It was notable that where practitioners worked jointly with the adolescent social work team, this enhanced assessing activity.

There was evidence of collaborative assessing activity with children and their parents or carers, which gave practitioners a genuine understanding of the context and environment children lived in and what had contributed to their offending. This also supported an understanding of the role parents and carers could play in keeping their child or the community safe. While this was a strength in practice, there were some instances where only one parent had been involved in assessing activity due to parental separation or issues related to language or cultural barriers. The lack of engagement of fathers was particularly evident.  

The approach to assessing ensured practitioners were aware of the factors that contributed to children’s offending, such as living arrangements, poverty, childhood trauma, challenges in relationships with parents and their ability to support their child, peer influences, emotional dysregulation and disengagement with education. However, in some instances, while the practitioner had identified these factors, they had not always fully analysed them in written assessments, and this needed to be done consistently.

Practitioners also had a full understanding of the child’s strengths and protective factors, and what was needed to promote positive change. For example, they knew about children’s interests and involvement in positive activities, engagement in education or training provisions, positive peer relationships and parental support.

Assessing to keep children and the community safe was also a strength. Practitioners identified factors that contributed to children being unsafe, such as exposure to domestic abuse, parental substance misuse and their own misuse of substances, emotional wellbeing and mental health concerns, adverse childhood experiences, negative peer influences, being at risk of exploitation, emotional dysregulation, and the impact of children’s neurodiversity on their wellbeing or the safety of others. In some cases, assessing related to safety lacked professional curiosity, which resulted in the child’s presenting risks not always being fully identified, explored or analysed. For example, practitioners did not fully consider why a child carried a weapon for their own protection, or why they felt unsafe in their community and how this could link to their safety or the safety of others; or they did not effectively consider the impact a child’s experiences of domestic abuse, parental mental health, and historical physical abuse could have on their safety.

Inspectors saw assessing practice that responded effectively to changes in children’s lives. For example, when alerted to new information, practitioners met with the child, their parents and key partners to explore and assess the presenting risk. They used this information to modify the assessed concerns or needs. Similarly, there was evidence of dynamic assessing practice in relation to pending offences and convictions in terms of what the contributing factors were, how they could impact on the child’s thinking and behaviour, and being aware of potential victims.

The approach to considering victims’ needs, wishes and safety was inconsistent. While in some instances this was due to there not being a direct victim or because information was not available, this element of assessing practice needed strengthening. There were examples where assessing reflected the impact on victims and analysed the context and likelihood of risk to actual or potential victims. However, this contrasted with instances where the victims’ needs and wishes had not been considered, or there was no or limited analysis of the safety of actual or potential victims.  

Diversity practice in assessing was variable as it did not always consider the intersectionality of children’s needs. Children’s protected characteristics and individual needs were consistently identified but were not always comprehensively analysed. This was often because priority was given to the impact of children’s neurodiversity, which meant that needs relating to, for example, ethnicity, culture, religion, being care-experienced, or having a history of trauma or experiences of discrimination, were less likely to be considered and analysed. Where assessing practice was comprehensive, and carefully and sensitively considered a child’s intersecting needs, we found a depth of understanding of children’s identity and lived experience. However, this needed to be undertaken consistently.  

Management oversight arrangements did not always identify shortfalls in the quality of assessing practice. For example, in some cases there was a lack of or limited analysis in assessing, which was more evident in terms of children’s safety and consideration of their intersecting diversity needs. In a small number of cases, managers did not address the issue of missing written assessments, which was critical given the nature of the cases. These arrangements needed strengthening to support the delivery of consistent high-quality assessing activity.

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

Our rating⁹ for planning is based on the following key questions:

Does planning focus sufficiently on how to:	% ‘Yes’
achieve positive change for the child?	80%
keep the child and community safe?	80%

Planning to achieve positive change and safety for children and the community was effective and comprehensive. The collaborative partnership approach to planning was a strength, as it ensured that planning was responsive to children’s needs and safety. Planning was more effective when it involved children’s social care, as it was supported by the joint supervision model. This was particularly evident when YJS practitioners and adolescent social workers collectively held responsibility for children. Multi-agency planning was inclusive of key partners like schools and the police, as well as the YJS specialist staff such as the CAMHS psychologists, substance misuse worker and employment and training adviser.

While practitioners collaborated with partner agencies in planning, they did not consistently do this with children, parents and carers. They were some examples of constructive and co-produced planning with children, as well as parents being included in planning to support their child to work with the YJS or to keep them safe. This was evident through the planning of activities such as providing reminders of appointments and being engaged in regular contact with YJS practitioners to give and receive updates on progress or report missing episodes as part of safety planning. However, planning more often reflected a ‘doing to’ rather than ‘doing with’ approach, which resulted in it not reflecting children’s voices or being personalised to the issues and priorities that were important to them. This needed improving to ensure a more child-centred approach.

Planning was responsive to children’s needs, strengths and protective factors. This included promoting children’s engagement in positive activities and community projects, which provided sustained support beyond their involvement with the YJS. Examples included the planned engagement of children in boxing or mentoring opportunities provided through Carney’s Community project, or the use of community provisions such as gyms or the youth bus. Planning also sought to maintain and strengthen relationships between parents and carers and their children, recognising the protective impact these had and the pivotal role they played in safety. Planning focused strongly on engaging children in education, training and employment (ETE) opportunities, recognising its dual role in supporting positive change and achieving safety. This included collaborative working with schools or colleges to maintain children’s engagement, identifying specialist provision for children and supporting them to engage with it, and advocating for children to enable them to reintegrate into mainstream provision.

Planning to keep children and the community safe was reflective of the risk factors identified in assessing. It was cognisant of the interconnectivity of safety for the child and community, and as such planned interventions that were responsive to both. These included sessions and activities on knife crime, the influence of peers, healthy relationships, resolution and emotional regulation, offence-specific interventions, emotional wellbeing and mental health, substance misuse, online safety and parenting support, as well as the engagement in specialist assessments with the high intensity nurse or SaLT. The planned delivery of interventions to promote the development of internal controls was complemented by the planned use of external controls such as prohibited contact requirements, ‘keep apart’ plans, electronically monitored curfews and monitoring by police and parents.

There was evidence of planning being appropriately responsive to change. For example, if a child was arrested or charged with new offences planning was adapted to reflect the new behaviours or risks, or following incidents that altered a child’s support networks, planning was revised in line with the child’s wishes. Inspectors also saw exit planning being modified so that it reflected the child’s changed and current circumstances. However, exit planning generally needed strengthening, as it was not always consistently considered and implemented. 

Planning in relation to victims was variable. There was evidence of victims’ wishes being considered and the planned delivery of restorative interventions such as letters of explanation and restorative justice conferences. When victims did not want direct contact with children, or when they chose not to engage with the YJS, planning included the delivery of victim awareness sessions. However, in contrast, there were examples of victims’ needs or wishes not being considered in planning. In some instances, there was a lack of planning to protect actual conflict or potential victims in community or secure settings. Greater consistency in planning to respond to victims’ needs, wishes and safety was required.

Diversity practice needed strengthening, as shortfalls in assessing extended into planning. While there were some examples of strong planning practice that was responsive to children’s intersecting needs, this was not consistently the case. Planning tended to be stronger when it was related to children’s neurodiverse and learning needs, although this was not always evident. When considering or responding to children’s and parents’ ethnicity, culture, faith, experiences of care or trauma, planning was limited and did not adequately reflect their identity or lived experience.  

Management oversight of planning was enhanced through a range of multi-agency processes and panels, including joint supervision with children’s social care teams, the formal planning processes for children and families engaged in children’s services, the YJS risk strategy panel and the multi-agency risk, vulnerability and exploitation (MARVE) panel.  

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2.3 Delivery	Rating
High-quality, well-focused, personalised and coordinated services are delivered, achieving positive change and keeping children and communities safe.	Good

Our rating¹⁰ 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?	80%
keep the child and the community safe?	73%

Delivery of work with children was comprehensive and responsive to identified needs, although there were elements of practice that required strengthening to ensure greater consistency, specifically in relation to keeping the community safe.

Practitioners were skilled at forming and maintaining constructive and trusted relationships with children, which supported the delivery of meaningful interventions. While case records did not always reflect the depth of work undertaken, it was evident from discussions with practitioners that they knew their children well and were responsive to their needs. YJS practitioners worked closely with parents and carers. They communicated with them regularly, involved them in the development and monitoring of safety plans for children, and delivered parenting support and interventions. Practitioners also liaised with other agencies, such as housing, and advocated for children, when this was required to support children’s safety and that of their families.

Collaborative working with multi-agency partners was a strength in delivery. There was consistent evidence of practitioners working closely with statutory partners such as schools, colleges, and specialist ETE providers, adolescent social workers and broader children’s social care teams, as well as the local voluntary sector. Partnership working was enhanced by YJS specialist staff, specifically the CAMHS psychologists, high intensity nurse, substance misuse worker, and employment and training adviser. This partnership approach supported the provision of effective interventions to promote positive change and safety for children and the community. However, the absence of the YJS SaLT was a noticeable gap in delivery, and the mitigations put in place had not effectively resolved this.  

Delivery to achieve positive change was intertwined with support to promote children’s strengths and protective factors. Children’s interests were encouraged through positive activities such as the gym, personal training or mentoring provided by community organisations, such as Carney’s Community. This provided sustained support for children past the end of their YJS disposal. Reparation was used constructively to develop routines and skills, as well as to support interests such as cooking, which had been used to explore one child’s heritage through making cultural dishes. Practitioners strongly focused on engaging children in ETE and were consistently supported by the employment and training adviser. This included advocacy and, in some cases, escalation so that children remained in mainstream education or college or were reintegrated into it. Inspectors also saw the use of alternative training opportunities, pre-employment courses or national employer pathways. This tenacious approach was particularly notable given the challenges in post-16 provision in the borough.

Interventions were delivered effectively by practitioners, YJS specialists and statutory partners to keep children and the community safe. They included knife possession, peer relationships and affiliations and the combined influence of these on a child’s identity. We also saw interventions on substance use, conflict resolution and emotional regulation, bullying, recognising and responding to exploitation, including online. There was also evidence of the healthy relationships’ intervention delivered by the YJS high intensity nurse. YJS CAMHS specialists were instrumental in delivering or supporting interventions that responded to children’s emotional wellbeing, mental health needs and experiences of trauma, as well as facilitating neurodiversity assessments and case formulations. Interventions were balanced using external controls such as prohibitive requirements or conditions, the implementation of ‘keep apart’ plans, active information-sharing and monitoring by partners or parents and carers, and restrictions on who lived in the family home following incidents. Inspectors saw examples of adaptations to delivery following new incidents, arrests or charges. For example, practitioners incorporated new concerns or behaviours into interventions, pursued alternative ETE provision following exclusion or arrests, or changed the arranged exit plan and offered voluntary support from the YJS.

The delivery of effective interventions strengthened victim work with children. For example, we saw generic victim awareness work that covered the impact, harm and consequences of offending. There were also examples of restorative interventions such as letters of explanation, meaningful indirect reparation, and the preparation and delivery of restorative justice conferences. These meetings had a positive impact on victims and children, as they provided explanation, understanding and reassurance. However, the approach to victims’ safety needed improvement, as in some cases practitioners had either not considered the risk to actual or potential victims at all, or they had not considered it well enough.

Diversity practice was variable. While there were examples of individualised interventions, this contrasted with delivery that was unresponsive or that only partially met children’s intersecting needs. Adapting direct work for neurodiverse children was a strength, although this was not consistently seen in practice. Positive examples included the use of fidget toys, visual aids, and consistency in the timing, duration and location of sessions, as well as asking children to use different words to explain an issue discussed so that practitioners could evaluate and ensure their understanding. However, the consideration and exploration of children’s identity, and how this may be shaped by their ethnicity, heritage, faith and culture, or individual experiences of discrimination or stop and search, was limited or lacking. Ensuring delivery responded to the wider intersectionality of children’s diversity, identity and lived experience needed development.

Management oversight supported the delivery of effective interventions, and this was strengthened through multi-agency forums such as the YJS risk strategy panel, care planning meetings, MARVE and multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA). However, greater consistency was required in respect of direct management oversight, as in some instances gaps in delivery were not identified, requested actions or adaptation to improve practice were not monitored and cases were not escalated, where required, to address shortfalls in resources. In these cases, management oversight had limited impact.

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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 victims	Rating
Work with victims is high-quality, individualised and responsive driving positive outcomes and safety for victims.	Requires improvement

Our rating¹¹ 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

• There was a strategic and operational commitment to developing and improving work with victims, as evidenced by the victim strategy and a dedicated priority in the youth justice plan.
• The victim strategy was comprehensive and provided a roadmap to developing and improving victim work. It provided a strong foundation for the delivery of high-quality work with victims.
• There was a genuine learning culture throughout the service, which extended to developing and improving the quality of work with victims.
• Staff delivering direct restorative interventions to victims were highly skilled, experienced and genuinely committed to the principles of restorative justice practice. We saw evidence that their direct contact with victims was personalised, engaging, sensitive, and reflective of deep care. This supported effective relationship-building and delivery of powerful restorative interventions.
• Staff involved in the delivery of work related to victims were enthusiastic, passionate and committed practitioners, motivated to provide high-quality services and interventions that were reflective of victims’ needs and wishes, and sought to repair the harm caused by offending. 
• Staff responsible for delivering victim work were integrated into the YJS and had access to a wide training offer that supported skills development. All staff directly working with victims were trained in restorative justice, registered with the Restorative Justice Council and, where appropriate, had engaged in complex and sensitive casework training to support their work.
• When victims engaged in support or services provided by the YJS, this was not curtailed or time bound by the disposal the child was subject to; instead, delivery was victim-led and determined by their needs.
• There was a strong commitment to the delivery of restorative justice, with a specific focus on restorative justice conferencing.  When undertaken, restorative justice conferencing was of high quality and impactful for those involved. 
• Local adaptations to police processes had improved the timeliness of sharing of victim information to the YJS for court-ordered disposals.
• The delivery of training to seconded police staff and development of information leaflets and scripts to guide their initial contact with victims had increased their knowledge and confidence in providing information on the YJS victim offer.  
• Activity to improve staff knowledge and confidence in making initial contact with victims, alongside the ‘implied consent’ approach, appeared to have had a positive impact on victim consent rates. However, the current data sets were small, and longer-term tracking was required to draw a direct correlation.
• Initial contact with victims sought to gain their consent, considered the impact of the offence, provided information on the YJS victim offer, explored their support needs, and advised on next steps. However, the quality of this contact was not always fully reflected in recording. 
• The victim assessment tool was effective at shaping and recording initial assessing activity with victims, and it enhanced recording practice where it was seen in the cases inspected. However, it was used inconsistently and was primarily seen when victims engaged with restorative justice interventions.
• The reinvigoration of the reparation offer had resulted in meaningful and creative community-based projects that repaired harm. As part of indirect reparation, victims could influence the projects and activities children engaged in. 
• Staff who worked with victims were integrated into the YJS. This supported effective relationships and collaborative working with YJS practitioners, although this was recognised that in some instances this could have been more effective. 
• Those responsible for the delivery of victim work accessed support and guidance from the pan-London victim and restorative justice forum, which was engaged in supporting the development of victim practice across London.
• The south London peer supervision group provided a valuable space to reflect on operational practice and be cognisant of the impact victim work had on often isolated specialist workers in the YJS.
• Those leading on work with victims had access to and used specialist support and guidance from the Restorative Justice Council to guide practice.
• The protocol for referral and joint working with the probation victim liaison unit was comprehensive and of high quality.

Areas for improvement

• There was limited evidence of the management board driving the strategic direction of victim work and ensuring operational practice was of high quality and responsive to the needs of all victims.
• There was no strategic lead on the management board to oversee the development and improvement of work with victims and ensure victims’ voices were heard and considered in future board activity.
• The collation and analysis of data relating to victims and their uptake of services were underdeveloped. The YJS had recognised that a more comprehensive and analysed data set to understand the victim profile and victims’ needs was required, including information on victims’ protected characteristics and individual needs. Work had started to collate and analyse this data, but it required commitment and support from all partners, particularly the Metropolitan Police.
• There was no evidence that the YJS had analysed, monitored or reviewed the interventions and support it provided for victims. This was necessary to ensure the YJS understood the effectiveness of its practice and could use this knowledge to inform and shape service delivery.
• There was an embedded and robust approach to practice assurance in respect of work with children; however, this had not been extended to work with victims. This was required so that the YJS and management board could assure themselves of the quality of work provided to victims. Additionally, there was no recorded evidence of management oversight in the victim case work inspected. This required strengthening and embedding to support the oversight and delivery of high-quality and effective work with victims.
• While the focus on restorative justice interventions was clearly a strength in the YJS, activity was required to broaden and diversify the victim offer to ensure it was more comprehensive, accessible and responsive to all victim needs.
• Victims’ safety was not adequately identified and responded to. There was a lack formal oversight arrangements and operational guidance to promote effective and safe practice. The approach to victims’ safety, including the knowledge, understanding and response by all staff, needed significant improvement.
• The role profile of the referral order and restorative justice lead had not been formally reviewed to ensure it provided sufficient capacity to promote the delivery of comprehensive, effective and high-quality services to victims.
• In a few of the cases inspected we saw drift and delay in providing victims with updates on children’s progress. This was indicative of competing priorities and challenges in the YJS’s capacity to delivery timely direct work with victims. 
• The restorative justice and victim policy and procedure was not reflective of a partnership approach to work with victims. It did not detail a comprehensive victim offer, victim safety approaches, access to support services outside of the YJS, management oversight and practice assurance, data collection and analysis, victim feedback, staff support and training, and governance and strategic oversight arrangements. There was limited reference to equity, diversity and inclusion or how victims’ individual needs and protected characteristics were responded to.
• The lack of information about victims’ protected characteristics and individual needs provided to the YJS compromised practitioners’ ability to tailor their initial contact and be responsive to the diverse needs of victims.
• The victim assessment tool needed to comprehensively gather and analyse victims’ individual needs and protected characteristics.
• The YJS did not have sufficient understanding of the nature or prevalence of hate crime or knowledge of the services available to meet the needs of these victims.  
• While there was some connectivity to the wider community safety partnership and its work with victims, this needed to be strengthened on a strategic and operational level. There was some knowledge of services and organisations that provided support to victims, but this was not representative of the broader networks and provision within the borough.
• Victims’ feedback to inform service delivery was underdeveloped and needed to improve. There was a strategic commitment to ensure victims’ voices were integrated into improvement work, including the development of a victim reference group to support and shape service delivery.

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

The YJS was integrated into Wandsworth children’s services, who valued participation to shape service delivery. The directorate had a dedicated participation service, which supported children to influence strategic decision-making, for example the vision for youth services, services for family hubs and the launch of a children’s services drug project. YJS children had engaged in borough-wide youth voice activities, including consultations, contributed to the corporate parenting panel and young inspector work, and attended local participation groups. They had taken part in local youth voice sessions to discuss safety, identity and community issues, which had resulted in children attending a local CCTV hub, learning about community safety and the collaboration between the police and local authority.

During 2024/2025 the YJS commissioned a youth participation project on young people’s lived experience of stop and search in the borough. Outcomes were shared within the partnership and used to influence strategic decision-making, policy and practice.

Strengthening participation activity in the YJS and community was a strategic priority in the youth justice plan. This included working with the participation service to ensure children had a voice in service design, developing high-quality feedback mechanisms, collaborating with voluntary and statutory partners to strengthen YJS children’s voices in community spaces and forums, and improving intervention planning to be more personalised and co-produced with children.

Children had been engaged in recruitment training and interview panels, which included the latest operational practice manager appointment. The YJS had recognised that children struggled to be involved in youth council sessions, so more accessible, service specific feedback routes were developed, including online surveys, short, targeted feedback forms, and individual discussions with practitioners. End of intervention feedback provided positive responses on the impact of individual or group work interventions, but also identified barriers. This led to the development of a YJS participation working group co-led by children and YJS staff. Examples of feedback shaping delivery included adapting the ‘Me, Myself and I’ programme so that sessions were shorter, paced differently, used more visual aids, included information on stop and search, and could be delivered individually or in small groups. Reflections from parents resulted in parental interventions being more culturally inclusive, had improved written materials and communication approaches, and considered parental support opportunities beyond formal sessions. Parents’ requests for clarity, accessibility and empathy, had influenced how resources were designed and how parents were being prepared for meetings or interventions.

The YJS contacted, on our behalf, children and their parents or carers who currently or recently had worked with the service, to gain their consent to provide feedback on their experience of the YJS. We provided a variety of opportunities for children, parents and carers to participate in the inspection process, resulting in five children[12]¹² and seven parents or carers talking to inspectors through telephone calls and face-to-face meetings.

In terms of their experiences and interactions with YJS staff, all the children, parents and carers indicated they had a say on the things that affected them and felt listened to, respected and valued. Children indicated that YJS practitioners asked them for their views on what they needed help with, and when discussing their needs, they felt listened to and understood. They felt workers knew who they were, that they had been treated fairly, and it had felt good to be respected. They told us:¹³  

“The YJS made me feel safe and comfortable. I could talk openly about what I needed without feeling judged.”

“Good communication and understanding of what we needed as a family. They have built a good relationship with us both and we feel respected.”

When considering the help and support provided by the YJS, there were consistently positive responses. Themes identified by children, parents and carers reflected the findings from our inspection of work with children. They specifically mentioned the benefits of the in-house health provision, the focus on ETE, support for children to access positive activities, and the collaborative working with and support for parents. They said:

“They helped me talk about my daily life, concerns and risks. They supported me with getting a job, my CV, and my schoolwork, and understood my ADHD … meeting at the youth centre worked well as it was close to home. They helped me stay out of trouble and get into a boxing club.”

“My worker noticed I had ADHD and helped me get a diagnosis.”

“They helped me get into college.”

“They helped [my child] to understand consent, the law, and healthy relationships. He also attended group work with the nurse and received support with education and training.”

“As a parent I really appreciate the parenting group. It’s good to know I’m not the only one. They help me think about different ways of parenting.”

We asked children, parents and carers what the YJS did well and what they could improve. In terms of improvements, a recurring theme highlighted by parents related to a SaLT not being in post. They stated:

“…need to just make sure that they have a substitute when a specialist worker is off work for a long time because my son didn’t get a SALT screen which would have been so helpful. Although they have said that he can come back after case closure to access this if it is back up and running.”

We received consistently positive feedback about working with the YJS from children, parents or carers. Comments included:

“I thought the case worker was brilliant. I was also impressed by the amount of different support the team had for us.”

“They understood my child’s needs, helped him recognise what he’d done wrong, and supported him to understand the consequences of future offending.”

“It has been life changing in a very positive way.”

“YJS have been really considerate of his safety needs, but I don’t know how his future would have looked like without this service advocating for him, alongside me.”

“In my home, and in managing [my child] I now feel so much more safe and secure to deal with whatever situations may come our way.”

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Equity, diversity and inclusion (Back to top)

Wandsworth YJS and its management board had an embedded commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion. Given the complexity, nature and over-representation experienced by children and families known to the YJS, addressing structural inequality, tackling racism and promoting anti-racist practice were central strategic and operational objectives.

Priorities in the youth justice plan 2025-2027 included focused support to children with SEND and a commitment to anti-racist practice and addressing disproportionality. The addition of strategic education leaders to the safeguarding children’s partnership and YJS management board had strengthened communication and relationships with schools and specialist education teams. Activity to address disproportionality included monitoring, scrutinising and responding to data, actively challenging racism in practice and partnership forums, listening to and acting on children’s lived experience, and promoting accessible and representative services and interventions. There was a specific aspiration to have a more diverse board, as this enhanced its cultural competence and ability to promote anti-racist practice, as well as challenge over-representation and negative outcomes for Black and global majority children. The board took a conscious decision to move to the term of racism rather than disproportionality, as it recognised this better reflected the issue.  

The YJS and management board understood the profile and characteristics of their children through a comprehensive and analysed data set. They were alert to the over-representation of Black and global majority children, and their further scrutiny identified an over-representation of children from Black/Black British communities and children of mixed heritage. Through a tracking exercise and analysis of partnership data it was identified that racial disparities were evident when children started school and during their education, particularly in terms of exclusions. A multi-agency improving attendance and behaviour panel had been established and, while embryonic, it was reported this approach had started to have an impact. Further, the issues identified had been highlighted to strategic forums, including the access for all scheme and the families first partnership programme, recognising the need for a multi-faceted approach.

The YJS had an anti-racist statement that exemplified its approach to equity, diversity and inclusion. It was easy to read and accessible to children, families and victims, as well as staff and partners. It promoted key elements of practice, such as seeing and challenging racism, including micro-aggressions; supported curiosity and willingness to learn about different cultures and experiences; highlighted the need to be alert to personal biases; raised awareness about adultification; promoted inclusive and supportive practice at an individual and service level; and committed to ongoing training and development.

The YJS had commissioned a focused participation project in 2024/2025 to understand children and young people’s lived experience of stop and search. Police data at the time indicated Black and global majority children in Wandsworth were disproportionately stopped and searched when compared to those in neighbouring boroughs. Focus groups in a range of settings used creative and discussion-based activities to gather the experiences of children and young people through co-designed questions. Key themes identified included experiences of harm, a detrimental impact on children’s emotional wellbeing, and racism, including feelings of being targeted or profiled. It also identified that children lacked an understanding of their rights. In contrast, it found there had been some positive experiences from which to learn and build. Children stated they wanted respectful communication, clear explanations, the use of their names and calm tones, an end to unnecessary force, training for officers to work with children and neurodiversity, and transparency in the use of section 60 restrictions. The findings were disseminated at strategic partnership forums and boards to shape practice, including that of the YJS. Most importantly, it had informed the local implementation of the Metropolitan Police stop and search charter and the perspective of focus groups set up to scrutinise body-worn camera footage of stops in Wandsworth.

Feedback from Black and global majority children had highlighted the need for a safe space to talk about identity, experiences of racism, stereotypes and aspirations. This resulted in the ‘Me, Myself and I’ programme, which had been developed and was delivered by Black practitioners. This ensured a culturally grounded approach which created credibility and safety for children, as well as positive representation. Evaluation of this identity and empowerment programme had resulted in children feeling seen, heard and understood, and confidently expressing their identity. YJS case managers and other professionals had reported improved self-advocacy, greater emotional insight and a reduction in conflict behaviour.  

Diversity practice in work with children needed strengthening. There were examples of effective and sensitive practice that was responsive to children’s diverse and intersecting needs, but this was inconsistent. In assessing, children’s protected characteristics and individual needs were identified but not consistently or comprehensively analysed. Too often children’s neurodiverse needs were prioritised and there were limited considerations of children’s ethnicity, culture, religion or experiences of discrimination, or of issues such as trauma history or being care-experienced. This prevented practitioners from getting a full understanding of a child’s identity and lived experience, which was then reflected in planning and delivery. Assessing, planning and delivery practice needed improvement so that practitioners were fully cognisant of and responsive to the intersectionality of children’s diversity and what this meant to them.    

Equity, diversity and inclusion practice in relation to work with victims needed development. The restorative justice and victim policy made limited reference to how victims’ individual needs or protected characteristics were responded to. Operational processes and practice, such as the victim assessment tool, were not used effectively to respond to victims’ diverse needs. There was limited knowledge of the occurrence or frequency of hate crime and the availability of services to support victims. The collation of victims’ protected characteristics and individual needs were limited and the victim data known to the YJS had not being comprehensively analysed. Consequently, the victim profile was not fully understood to shape service delivery or adapt practice. Encouragingly, this had been recognised at a strategic and operational level and partnership activity had begun to resolve this shortfall. The involvement of the Metropolitan Police was central to this.

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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 Sara Pordham, 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.

1. There are two types of inspections as part of the current youth inspection programme across England and Wales: inspections of youth justice work with children and victims (IYJWCV) and inspections of youth justice services (IYJS). Further information about these inspections can be found on our website Youth Justice Services – HM Inspectorate of Probation. ↩︎
2. A further three interviews were conducted with case manager’s line manager. ↩︎
3. Office for National Statistics (July 2025). UK population estimates mid-2024. ↩︎
4. Office for National Statistics Census 2021. How life has changed in Wandsworth: Census 2021. ↩︎
5. A relational systemic practice model understands a child or family within their network of relationships and contexts, focusing on interaction patterns and shared meaning. It supports practitioners to build respectful, strengths-based relationships to promote safety, change and pro-social development. ↩︎
6. Enhanced case management is a trauma-informed psychology-led approach based on the trauma recovery model developed by Dr Tricia Skuse and Jonny Matthew. It uses clinical case formulation to tailor the delivery of interventions to meet children’s developmental and mental health needs, strengthen multi‑agency coordination and promote holistic, relationship‑focused practice. ↩︎
7. Carney’s Community is a Wandsworth charity that supports young people affected by poverty, trauma, school exclusion, or who are involved in the criminal justice system, through long‑term mentoring, boxing programmes, skills workshops and positive activities to reduce offending and improve social mobility. For more information, see Support for Disadvantaged Young People in Wandsworth. ↩︎
8. 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. ↩︎
9. 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. ↩︎
10. 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. ↩︎
11. 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. ↩︎
12. One meeting was undertaken with the child and their parent or carer and recorded jointly on one recorded tool, hence the discrepancy with the data recorded in the data annexe. ↩︎
13. All quotes are directly from children and their parents or carers. ↩︎