WAVE has brought the three major political parties in the UK together on the issue of early intervention

In March 2007, the Rt Hon. Iain Duncan Smith MP, former leader of the Conservative Party, now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and founder of the innovative Think Tank the Centre for Social Justice, saw a WAVE presentation on the potential contribution of primary prevention and early intervention in the fight to reduce violence and child abuse in society.

Engaged at that time in a mission to reduce social breakdown and inequality in the UK, he immediately recognised the power of the WAVE message and incorporated significant components of the WAVE Report ‘Violence and what to do about it’ and its recommendations in the Centre for Social Justice's commentary on the state of Britain in ‘Breakdown Britain’, and recommendations for action,’ Breakthrough Britain’, published later in 2007.

In February 2008, WAVE met with Iain, Graham Allen, Wilf Stevenson of the left-wing Think Tank The Smith Institute and Samantha Callan of the Centre for Social Justice. Graham and Iain, both now active champions of the importance of primary prevention and early intervention, had recognised that to tackle the root causes of violence and child abuse was a challenge which, to succeed, needed to span more than the 5-year lifetime of one or two British parliaments, and these two far-sighted British politicians recognised that this challenge was too important to be allowed to fail through changes in government or cross-party bickering. They therefore proposed the production of a joint paper, to be published in mid-2008, backed by:

a) these high-profile MPs from each of the two major parties

b) two highly respected Think Tanks from both ends of the political spectrum, and

c) underpinned by the research findings of WAVE Trust

Ita Walsh, author of ‘Violence and what to do about it’ was invited to prepare the draft paper, together with Samantha Callan as her editor, and to submit it for approval by Iain, Graham and the two Think Tanks. Graham and Iain would also each write an introduction for the final document.

Iain is now a patron of WAVE and George, our CEO, was a senior adviser to the recent review into Early Intervention, chaired by Graham Allen and commissioned by the Social Justice Sub-Committee, itself chaired by Iain Duncan Smith.