History - RAPt

1991 RAPt started as the Addicted Diseases Trust when Peter Bond, a recovering alcoholic, observed the success of abstinence-based programmes in the United States. He, Jonathan Wallace and RAPt trustee Michael Meakin, set up a charity to meet the needs of drug addicts in UK prisons.

1992 RAPt opens the first intensive drug rehabilitation programme in a UK prison in a Portakabin at HMP Downview in Surrey. The actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, an early supporter, provided much-needed funds and remains a patron today.

1995 HM Prison Service provides funding to RAPt for the first time. A second treatment programme opens at HMP Coldingley.

1996 New programmes are established at HMP Pentonville and HMP Wandsworth. An aftercare service is initiated to support graduates after they have completed the programme and to help them resettle into the community.

1997-8 RAPt’s Addiction Counsellor Training Course is designed for people who work in prisons. Almost half the participants are prison officers.

1999 RAPt develops new programmes specifically targeting the needs of women and young offenders.

2000 RAPt wins a contract to set up a rehabilitation unit at HMP Send. This is the first 12 Steps treatment centre to be set up in a women’s prison in Britain.
Publication of independent research undertaken by the Centre of Crime and Justice Studies and King’s College London, which indicates that 53% of RAPt graduates remain drug-free and 80% remain crime-free six months after release.

2001 Following our successful accreditation, RAPt is approached by six prisons to implement programmes. The organisation begins to work in HMPs Swaleside, The Mount, Wandsworth and Everthorpe.

2002 RAPt opens a programme in the London borough of Southwark designed to support released prisoners and young people. This unit signifies an extension of RAPt’s services into the community.

2004 RAPt opens 'The Bridges' a drug treatment unit in Hull, Yorkshire. This is a primary and secondary residential project for both male and female ex-offenders.

2005 Following the re-tendering process, RAPt receives an increased number of contracts to work in prisons. As a provider of CARAT teams, RAPt’s work with these groups is now focused in prisons in London, Surrey and Kent.

2006 RAPt launches The Island Day Programme, a new community project in London. This centre is a 12 Steps day programme for men and women with drug and alcohol problems who live in Tower Hamlets.

2007 Surrey Alcohol Brief Intervention Service (SABIS) was set up to cater for the county’s adult alcohol-users who have problems associated with their alcohol consumption and may have come to the attention of the criminal justice system or the crime and disorder reduction partnerships, or been referred through hospital accident and emergency departments or GPs, as well as by self-referral. The programme closed in March 2010.

2009 RAPt won a contract to set up The A-Team in Birmingham. The A-Team is a primary care alcohol and healthy living service for people over 18 who live in Birmingham. This is a partnership contract with Nacro and involves working, in conjunction with GP’s, to screen people for alcohol misuse and either refer them into treatment if they are dependent or establish and deliver a range of brief interventions to help them to drink sensibly if they are in the ‘hazardous/harmful’ range of drinking.

RAPt opens a new community project in Tower Hamlets. The Tower Hamlets Community Alcohol Team (THCAT) offers an integrated system of treatment from education and brief intervention for non-problematic drinkers to detoxification and pathways into residential rehabilitation for dependent drinkers.