In her office at the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center, Dianna Smoot studied whiteboards loaded with multi-colored sticky notes.
“These are all classes,” Smoot said as she organized the agenda for the upcoming Crimes Against Children Conference. The gathering is the largest of its kind and was started by her father, Dallas Police Lt. Bill Walsh, who used the same sticky note organizing system to plan it.
“My father was the cofounder here at DCAC,” Smoot said. “So I’ve really been raised in this world.”
Walsh cofounded DCAC 35 years ago. The organization brings law enforcement, prosecutors, medical professionals and child protective services together to help abused and neglected children. Since it opened, DCAC has helped 130,000 children.
“Dad was a lieutenant in the child abuse division, and it didn’t take very long for him to see we could be doing this better,” Smoot said. “At the core, he just believed children deserve to be safe, and believed, and protected, and he worked really hard to make that happen here in Dallas. “
Walsh also started the Crimes Against Children Conference, which brings child advocates and law enforcement from across the country and internationally to Dallas to learn how to best help vulnerable children.
“Dad’s impact was really here locally, and then also helping to change the field and how the field responds to children who have been victimized,” Smoot said.
Walsh died last January. He was recently honored posthumously, being inducted into the National Law Enforcement Officer Hall of Fame. Smoot and her brother accepted the honor on their father’s behalf.
“I know I couldn’t be more proud of him,” Smoot said. “He was just as good of a human as the thing he helped to build.”