He worked with young offenders, and noticed that many of the children he encountered went on to be early entrants to the youth justice system.
He set up the charity and designed its 'solution focused' approach to early intervention, based on the pioneering work of Steve de Shazer and his wife Insoo Kim Berg.
[3] Additional funding was received at the end of 1995 through a Home Office 'reducing criminality' initiative which enabled the fledgling charity to pilot its approach over the following three years.
As Dave says, 'on my first day I turned up and was shown a desk, phone and empty in-try, nothing else existed but Russ's idea!'.
Some Notable celebrities that took part in the campaign included Nick Jonas, Jamie Oliver, Paloma Faith and Jo Brand.