We help people who have a family member who uses drugs or alcohol.
The charity was founded in 1997 as a result of local women’s concerns about absence of support for families.
What initially began as a peer support meeting evolved into a group of active citizens with enough confidence to take action on social issues surrounding drug and alcohol misuse, in particular the emotional, health and economic effect on carers.
In a relatively short space of time PROPS grew from a small community group to a charity which has helped thousands of families from the North East and beyond.
In 2003 PROPS were awarded the Queens Golden Jubilee Award for Service to Local Communities, and our then Chair, the late Val Clark, was recognised as a Local Hero in the Year of the Volunteer receiving her award in London from the Home Secretary.
Patron – Dr Robert J Meyers
Dr Robert J Meyers has been a patron of PROPS North East for ten years.
Dr Meyers, who developed CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) in the US as an innovative intervention programme for carers to encourage resistant substance abusers to enter treatment, has been in the addiction field for over 45 years, including over 30 years at the University of New Mexico. He is a director of Robert J Meyers PhD & Associates and a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in Psychology at the university’s Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addiction.
Dr Meyers began his work with the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA) in 1976 when he helped develop the first CRA outpatient procedures, used in the seminal study on the subject published by Dr Nathan Azrin and colleagues.
In addition to the CRA and CRAFT programmes Dr Meyers helped design and evaluate the adolescent version of CRA (A-CRA).
These evidence-based protocols have been shown to be successful in several randomised clinical trials.
Dr Meyers endorses PROPS North East to train and supervise workers in all three CRA disciplines throughout the UK.
