On 24th April 2009 George Hosking presented at the Early Intervention International Conference held in Nottingham to mark its role as 'Early Intervention City'.

This title for Nottingham arose from a recommendation in the WAVE report Violence and what to do about it that 'one British town or city should be selected as a large-scale test area for simultaneous implementation of a full range of effective intervention strategies, to see if their combined effects might be cumulative'. Local MP Graham Allen asked WAVE to help Nottingham to be selected as the pilot city.

George and colleague Ita Walsh subsequently prepared a business case for the Home Office, which George presented to then Home Secretary John Reid, winning his support for the proposal.

Unfortunately, due to local circumstances in Nottingham, the subsequent pilot did not follow WAVE's proposals, but it does still represent a commitment to try a number of early intervention approaches.

The 2009 Early Intervention International Conference brought international experts into contact with leaders of the local community who are implementing the early intervention programmes. Amongst other speakers were Jon Collins, Leader of Nottingham City Council, David Olds, creator of the Nurse Family Partnership, Karyn McCluskey, Deputy Head of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, and Graham Allen MP.

Graham Allen asked George to speak to the title 'Building brains to tackle causes not symptoms'. This choice reflected 1) The importance of the first three year in a child's life for building the right emotional brains, and 2) WAVE's focus on addressing root causes rather than symptoms. To download a copy of George's PowerPoint® presentation "Building brains to tackle causes not symptoms" click here. Note that this a 2.9 Mb file.