Youth Justice Team Leader – Children and Families Service

Hackney is one of the most dynamic and progressive local authorities in the UK. We are a resilient, vibrant, and creative borough in the heart of London, with strong, diverse communities and a powerful set of shared values.

Over the past twenty years, the Council has built up first-class services, outstanding public infrastructure, and a reputation for excellence, innovation, and ambition. We are leading the way on essential work such as our fight for equity in Hackney with a particular focus on becoming an actively anti-racist borough. But the work doesn’t stop there, we are proactive in our approach to bringing fairness to all aspects of life including gender, neurodiversity and across the poverty divide.

Youth Justice Team Leader

Location: 275 Mare Street & Hackney Service Centre

Hackney’s Youth Justice Service’s primary aim is to prevent offending by children and young people. The principle of ‘child first’ guides the work of our Youth Offending Service. For those children who have offended, we work to reduce offending behaviours by partnership and collaboration with a range of practitioners across Children and Families Services, Education, Police, other local authorities, Probation, Youth Courts, Speech and Language and mental health practitioners.

The postholder will become part of the service leadership structure for the Youth Justice Service, and will lead a multi agency team to deliver trauma informed, anti-racist and evidenced-based practice. We are ambitious for all our young people and expect staff to deliver thoughtful, focused interventions that promote desistance from offending and that support young people to thrive.  

Dynamic, innovative, committed and passionate, you’ll bring a comprehensive knowledge and skill-base to the challenge of working with vulnerable children and families. Modelling confident, professional practice and utilising supervision and audit activity to provide assurance on the quality of service delivery, the successful candidate will ensure that the needs of children, young people, their families and carers are assessed and that that effective outcome focussed plans are developed and delivered in accordance with the National Standards for Youth Justice. 

Reporting to the Service Manager, the Youth Justice Team leader will be part of a leadership team committed to developing trauma informed approaches and tackling the unequal treatment of children within the youth justice system, whilst keeping children and the public safe by applying a rigorous focus on mitigating potential harms. In addition to operational management Team Leaders also take the lead on key themes and service issues (eg Resettlement, MAPPA, Trauma Informed Practice, Victims), managing practice and partnership relationships within and outside the Local Authority. 

Our service seeks to actively contribute to organisational learning through recognising, promoting and supporting best practice and service development whilst retaining a clear focus upon positive outcomes for children and families across the borough. Hackney is proud of its organisational learning culture and strives to find innovative ways of engaging and facilitating change with young people and their families. The opportunity for developing innovative and impactful youth justice services is high as the role has oversight of the development of YOT interventions (group and 1-1) in partnership with other youth providers and partner agencies as appropriate. The post will provide regular opportunities for the training and coaching of staff.

As part of our journey to be anti-racist we want our workforce to represent the community we serve and embrace diverse talent and we strongly encourage applications from Black and Global Majority Ethnic backgrounds.

If you have any questions about the role please contact Naomi Salawu Service Manager, Youth Justice, Naomi.Salawu@hackney.gov.uk

An Enhanced DBS check is required for this role

As a Council, our most outstanding asset is our staff, who are highly dedicated to serving our residents and committed to our goals as an organisation.

If you want to work in a place where you can represent our values so we achieve the best for our residents, please click on the apply button below.

We operate a fair and open anonymous selection process. Therefore, we do not accept supporting statements or CV’s.

To proceed with your application, you will need to create an account and submit your application.

As part of the application process, you will need to complete a number of competency based questions. These questions allow you to demonstrate your suitability for the role and provide examples of your skills, knowledge and experience outlined in the job description.

We understand the benefits of using AI in the workplace. However, if you are thinking of using this tool to submit your application, we ask you to think about what value it will add. AI tools tend to lack the personal touch and authenticity we value in candidates. We encourage you to showcase your unique knowledge and skills using your own voice.

Closing date for applications: 30 November 2025 (22:59)

Interview date: W/c 15 December 2025

We are also working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud; a place that celebrates diversity and where everyone can feel valued, included and involved. In order to achieve this, we look for people who are: Proud; Ambitious; Pioneering; Open; Proactive; Inclusive.

Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people, as this group is currently under represented in our workforce.

The Council has a dedicated employment support service (Hackney Works), which offers Hackney residents guidance in relation to applying for jobs. If you are thinking about applying for a job, please contact the Hackney Works team to find out what support is available: hackneyworks@hackney.gov.uk

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