29 Years of Impact

Ita’s Story
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Ita Walsh served as a Director of Cameron Consultants from 1985 until 2019 (her role in Cameron is detailed elsewhere on this website). Beyond her pivotal contributions to Cameron Consultants, Ita was instrumental in partnering with George Hosking to create WAVE Trust. Together, they adapted Cameron’s proven methodology - originally designed to transform business outcomes by addressing root causes - to achieve a similarly transformative impact on WAVE’s social goals. A superb writer, Ita forged a close working relationship with George, turning his subject content into persuasive, high-quality reports for WAVE.

Ita brought to WAVE the same unwavering dedication she had always shown at Cameron Consultants, making substantial contributions to the success of both organisations. Among the reports she co-authored with George Hosking are:

- Violence and What to Do About It (2005)
- Working Together to Reduce Serious Youth Violence (2008)
- International Experience of Early Intervention for Children, Young People, and Their Families (2010)
- Conception to Age 2 – The Age of Opportunity (2013)
- Building Great Britons (2015)

She also wrote, on behalf of former Conservative Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith, the bulk of the Parliamentary report Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens (2008) and, with George, the early years components of the Government’s Allen Review Early Intervention: The Next Steps (2011). Additionally, for the Centre for Social Justice she co-authored Making Sense of Early Intervention (2011).

In 2014, Lankelly Chase commissioned Ita to research and write a report on severe and multiple disadvantage as it applies to children. Determined not only to describe the problem but also to propose robust, realistic measures to prevent this blight on children’s lives, she embraced the project wholeheartedly. When the funding ran out in 2016, she refused to stop - unsatisfied with the quality of evidence available to underpin her recommendations and conclusions. Insisting on meeting her own exacting standards, she continued the work for two years without salary. In 2018, she finally completed her final report, Conception to Age 2 – Systems to Protect Children from Severe Disadvantage, which WAVE published. Although George Hosking served as its editor, he was not a co-author, and he has described the report as a masterpiece.

The report’s impact was felt long before its publication. Its central thrust - advocating for the prevention of Adverse Childhood Experiences and the adoption of trauma-informed care for those who had suffered childhood trauma - prompted WAVE in 2017 to spearhead trauma-informed practices among the governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as police forces across the UK, through a series of workshops for senior civil servants and police officers.

Tragically, Ita passed away in August 2019 following a short illness with throat cancer - a loss compounded by the NHS’s initial misdiagnosis and subsequent delay in starting treatment during the critical two-month period after she first reported her symptoms (which she herself had identified as throat cancer). She is profoundly missed.

Perhaps her finest writing is not found in any of the published reports, but in her unpublished autobiography, Kithoag, (Left-hander), which recounts her early years in Ireland - a work cherished by her ex-husband.

The youngest of seven children, Ita’s love for animals was evident from an early age. She once shared a cot with her first pet, Ginger, before she was 12 months old, [unusually, Ita could recount memories from her early childhood, from before the age of 12 months] and she always kept at least one cat. This lifelong affection for animals also fuelled her commitment at WAVE, where she recognised that cruelty to animals stemmed from the same root causes as child abuse and violence - and that addressing those root causes would reduce both.

Instrumental in changing definition of ‘Early Intervention’ in UK policy making from children aged 8 to under 3

Bringing Early Years programmes Nurse Family Partnership and Roots of Empathy to UK – these have jointly benefited >90,000 children & families

Winning Conservative and Lib Dem support before 2010 leading to the Coalition Government investing in expanding the universal health visitor workforce

Produced influential reports e.g. in 2005, 2008, 2010, which significantly influenced thinking by the Metropolitan Police, Scottish Violence Reduction Unit and Police Scotland, Home Office and Labour and Coalition Governments.

Asked by the DfE and DH to lead an 18-month study to recommend policies for children in the period before age 2, which led to the joint DfE (and DH endorsed) report ‘Conception to age 2 – the age of opportunity’ (2013). This report was endorsed by UNICEF, used internationally, triggered the N Ireland Infant Mental Health strategy, and has been described as their ‘Early Years Bible’ by many English local authorities. It has been translated into many languages including Icelandic. In 2019 we were told by an English local authority that it had been the blueprint for its early years’ policies throughout the previous 5 years.

Won Treasury support in 2014, with £15 million of funding, to pilot a detailed blueprint plan we developed to test a comprehensive primary prevention programme of action, for children under 3 years of age, in four English local authorities. We also enrolled 15 local authorities who wanted to partner us in this project and were willing to put in matched funding if selected. (The funding was withdrawn by the incoming Government in 2015, whose focus was cost cutting.)

Appointed as advisers to 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Departments of Education and Health, the Home Office, the Scottish and Welsh governments, and agencies of the Northern Ireland Government.

Have advised and changed the policies and priorities of a number of UK local authorities – see video by the former CEO of Croydon Council on the impact of our work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwIrvMF9RE

Set up and coordinated a coalition of 100 academics and charities in Scotland – the ‘Putting the Baby in the Bathwater’ coalition – which persuaded the Scottish Government to amend its Children and Young People’s Bill, such that the subsequent Act embedded a commitment to prevention as a requirement for local authorities.

Our 2015 ‘Building Great Britons’ blueprint for a national early years’ strategy, influenced the conclusions of a number of high profile, subsequent Parliamentary Inquiries and a key N Ireland report; and helped shape the subsequent 'Early Years Review', adopted as Government policy.

Our report ‘Age 2 to 18 – systems to protect children from severe disadvantage’ (2018) triggered (before it was published, but when we knew its recommendations) our work in setting up trauma-informed communities and training organisations across the UK in how to implement trauma-informed practice. An early step, in 2017, was being asked by the National Police Chiefs Council to deliver the first UK-wide trauma-informed policing workshop for senior officers from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Our 5-Nations Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) workshops for civil servants/NHS in Scotland, Wales, N Ireland, England & ROI, helped create priority attention for ACEs by governments and agencies in Scotland and Ireland, and helped build recognition in London

Setting up & running three impactful Cross Party Groups in the Westminster and Scottish Parliaments, influencing policy thinking in both countries

Winning the support of over 600 UK MPs, over 99% of Scottish MSPs, and a majority of Welsh, London and Northern Ireland Assembly Members, for our 70/30 campaign. This is a platform for major changes in outcomes for children in generations to come. We have also had support for 70/30 expressed in the election manifestos of the Liberal Democrat, Welsh Nationalist and Scottish Labour parties.

Strongly influenced the content of key policy reports such as the UK Parliament report ‘The Critical 1,001 Days Manifesto’ (2013), the London Assembly Report ‘Healthy First Steps’ (2018) and the DUP report in Northern Ireland ‘Hope for Every Child’ (2018). Acknowledged in all of these, and central to the recommendations in the London Assembly report.

By direct counselling, both one-to-one and in groups, helping well over a score of serious violent offenders to renounce violence completely in their lives (results validated by Metropolitan Police)

Delivering trauma training to thousands of employees in addiction and domestic violence services, communities, education, GPs, health services, hospitals, housing, local authorities, police, prisons, probation, social services, schools, third sector, universities, youth offending, across the UK

Delivered a comprehensive strategic plan and implementation action plan on how to prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences from occurring, and how to implement wide scale training in trauma-informed practice, for 18 statutory agencies in the south of England, including four local authorities and two NHS Trusts.

Developed a detailed action plan showing how local areas in Scotland, comprising local authorities, NHS Health Boards, and local communities, can reduce the main root causes of addiction, child abuse, crime, domestic abuse, mental illness, poor educational performance and violence by 70% by the year 2030, in a plan entitled Transforming Scotland in a Generation.