Hi, we’re Jane and Calum — Kiwis and concerned family members who, like so many others, have loved someone battling addiction. Calum has also been in recovery himself for over a decade. Together, we want to share our journey and why we created We The Village in 2017 — not because our stories are unique, but because they are heartbreakingly common. Chances are, our experiences mirror your own.

When addiction touched our closest relationships, we desperately sought answers — attending 12-step groups, talk therapy, and even costly interventions. Yet, these approaches often left us, the caring and motivated family members, feeling misunderstood, judged, and sidelined.

We were told our problem was enabling, that we were codependent, and essentially powerless.
The prevailing advice? Set more boundaries, detach, and disconnect.
But that just didn’t sit right with us.
Surely, there had to be something we could do or say to help our loved ones.

Thankfully, we didn’t give up.
Eventually, we discovered a compassionate, clinically proven approach that leveraged the power of our relationships. This method gave us practical frameworks and principles — guiding us to words and actions that increased connection and helped us influence positive change and recovery.

As we saw this approach work for our families, and learned that nearly half of Americans love someone struggling with addiction, we realized we had a key role to play in changing the way the world recovers.

So committed to this goal, we went back to school and assembled a team of industry leaders to create a better way forward — for families, for loved ones, and for recovery itself.
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We joined forces with world-leading family recovery expert Dr. Robert J. Meyers, creator of the Community Reinforcement and Family Training model, and seasoned behavioral scientist Dr. Kimberley Kirby, nationally recognized for her work in addictions, to develop our programs. It was paramount to us that we ensured families had access to programs that we could confidently stand behind, ones that deliver the most positive impact possible with consistency. That is why we put our programs through multiple rounds of rigorous clinical testing thanks to the support and funding from The National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Since 2017, we’ve been working passionately and meticulously, step-by-step, day-by-day,
to forge a new path for family recovery.

If you’re loving someone through addiction, you are not alone.
There is hope, and together, we can change the story of recovery — one family at a time.

We are honored that more than 1,000 families have trusted us to date.
Their courage and commitment inspire everything we do.