Motivational Speaker George Hosking OBE | International Keynote Speaker on Early Years & Violence Prevention

Invited keynote at the joint UNICEF–WHO meeting on early childhood development in Madrid. George set out the foundation that drives all of WAVE Trust’s work: that the quality of caregiver attunement in the first three years shapes brain architecture, lifelong outcomes, and the next generation’s capacity to parent. He argued that early-years investment is the single most powerful lever any society has to prevent harm before it occurs — and shared the evidence base from 30 years of WAVE Trust research.

Round-table address to senior officers of Devon & Cornwall Police on the root causes of violent crime — and why traditional enforcement, on its own, will never be enough. George drew on the Met Police’s experience (Cdr Allan Gibson, when leading on knife and gun crime, called WAVE Trust the most evidence-based prevention organisation he had encountered) and made the case for shifting spending upstream: preventing harm before it occurs by supporting parents and the earliest years.

Headline keynote at the Devon Criminal Justice Board’s annual conference. George presented the WAVE Trust 70/30 Initiative — the campaign to reduce child maltreatment and consequent harm by 70% by 2030 — and walked the audience through how a single generation can dramatically lower violence, addiction, mental ill-health and poor educational outcomes by acting at the earliest point in a child’s life. The talk drew on the Dunedin Study and 30 years of WAVE Trust evidence on what actually works.

Featured speaker on Care Visions’ international webinar “Raising Steady Kids in a Shifting World”. George spoke to caregivers, social workers and policy-makers about the four fundamental life skills children need to develop early — and the conditions parents need in order to provide them. The session ended with a live Q&A on how attunement and emotional regulation in the first three years protect against the developmental fallout of childhood trauma and adversity.

Keynote at the Hampshire PCC’s annual violence-prevention conference, attended by police, local-authority leaders and commissioners. George opened with his often-quoted line: smallpox and cholera were eradicated not by treating them better but by tackling their causes — and argued the same logic must now apply to violence. The talk laid out the WAVE Trust framework that has shaped UK violence-reduction strategy across forces in Plymouth, Manchester, Glasgow, the West Midlands and beyond.

Invited to brief at 10 Downing Street on the early-years foundations of violence prevention. The conversation drew on George’s role as Vice-Chair of the Transforming Scotland in a Generation Commission and on WAVE Trust’s three decades of work informing UK government policy. The central argument: a generational shift in childhood outcomes is achievable — and significantly cheaper than the cost of inaction — provided the levers are pulled at the earliest point in a child’s development.