Seven Challenges ® Collaboration

The Seven Challenges ® – IFS Collaboration

Our Intensive-In Home teams and Therapists have collaborated with The Seven Challenges ® to bring this evidence based substance use and co-occurring disorders treatment program to adolescents! For more information, check out the fact sheets below or contact our Assistant Clinical Director, Roxanne Banks O’Kelley at 252-439-0700.

Overview of The Seven Challenges®

Seven ChallengesTraditional approaches to working with adolescents who have drug problems have produced disappointing results.  The mad rush to get young people to say, “I will quit” often leads to either increased defiance, or increased dishonesty, with young people telling adults what they “want to hear.”  It also leads to failure among certain youth who follow adult directives to quit, but soon relapse because they have not laid a solid foundation for success.

The Seven Challenges Program starts where youth “are at” (usually resistant and reluctant to change), not where we wish they would be or might pretend to be (fully and honestly prepared to quit.)  We avoid the pitfall of teaching people to be drug free before they have honestly decided to be drug free.  We also resist the temptation to follow the common practice of locking horns; trying to convince young people that they have problems, and backing them into defensive positions.  Instead of fear and coercion, we harness the enormous power of education, finesse and respectful confrontation.  We take the slow but steady approach.

To succeed in working with youth, The Seven Challenges Program places a special emphasis on creating a climate of mutual respect within which individuals can talk openly and honestly about themselves.  Working through The Seven Challenges helps adolescents understand what needs they are meeting by using drugs, what harm they are causing, what risks they are taking, and what it entails to give up a drug using lifestyle. We raise consciousness, inspire hope, and motivate informed, internally driven, sincere decisions to change.

Information on The Seven Challenges is available at www.sevenchallenges.com.

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