Children’s services chief says council is dedicated to diverting young people away from the criminal justice system, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Enfield Civic Centre and (inset) Abdul Abdullahi, cabinet member for children’s services

Enfield Council has set out its priorities for supporting young people over the next two years – with a focus on reducing youth violence.

In its 2024-26 strategic plan the council has said it will reduce reoffending, prevent first-time crime, continue to embed a ‘child first’ approach, as well as “relentlessly focus” on the prevention of “serious youth violence”.

A report discussed at a full council meeting last night (Wednesday 6th) explained that first-time entrants to the youth justice system were reduced by 11.5% from 78 to 69 children, compared to the previous year.

According to the council’s annual youth survey, 100% of children said they felt “listened to and supported” and 95% rated their service experience as “outstanding or good”.

The Enfield Safeguarding Partnership, which oversees the work of borough’s youth justice service and its management board, has delivered training to partners on anti-discrimination practice and ‘adultification’ in a bid to uphold the council’s “disproportionality pledge”.

Speaking at the meeting, Labour councillor and associate cabinet member Chris James said: “The youth justice board and staff have undergone extensive training. The team has embedded more and more practices across our services ensuring every professional is trained to uphold a nurturing and empathic approach.

“Equally crucial is our commitment to addressing disproportionately. We recognise that young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are disproportionately represented in the youth justice system and in response we have developed our disproportionationality pledge.

“This pledge ensures that we are proactive in providing equal opportunities and countering structural inequalities that have long impacted these communities.”

Cabinet member for children’s services Abdul Abdullahi said the team had asked itself how it could “solve the problem” of the borough’s “serious youth violence” and “keep young people safe”.

He concluded the aims set out in the plan built on the council’s dedication to divert young people away from the criminal justice system.

Conservative group leader Alessandro Georgiou added: “At the end of the day, implementing this strategy I think will help the situation. Reoffending rates within this borough are still too high, as they are across London.”

However, Cllr Georgiou also criticised training take-up rates, saying they were “disappointing”.

He said: “Safeguarding children has extremely poor attendance rates, safeguarding adults has extremely poor attendance rates, anti-racism, extremely high, which is good given the overrepresentation of young black men within the criminal justice system. Then gang related training, extremely poor, so I think it’s something we could work on for people in the team.”

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