Traditional approaches to working with adolescents with drug problems have produced high dropout rates and disappointing outcomes. The rush to get youth to say "I will quit" often leads to increased defiance or dishonesty, with young people telling adults what they want to hear. It also leads to youth soon relapsing because they have not laid a solid foundation for success.
Most young people do not seek drug treatment on their own. The Seven Challenges starts where youth are (usually resistant and reluctant to change), not where adults wish they might be (ready, willing, and prepared to succeed with immediate abstinence).
Although the program captures any sincere impulse to quit, counselors avert power struggles and insincere commitments to change by striving for honesty and engagement. The program helps counselors avoid the pitfall of teaching clients to be drug free before they have honestly decided to be drug free. 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 program places a special emphasis on creating a climate of mutual respect in which clients can talk openly and honestly about themselves. We engage young people to actively think about their use of alcohol or other drugs and its effect on their lives.
Working through The Seven Challenges helps young people understand what needs they are meeting by using drugs, what harm they are causing, what risks they are taking, and what it entails to make changes. We raise consciousness, inspire hope, and motivate informed, internally driven, sincere decisions to change. Once such decisions are made, we teach the tools and provide the support that ensure success.
People use drugs for a reason. We help young people identify their own motivation. Often, they find they use drugs to cope with situational or psychological problems, or to compensate for life skill deficits. Many people who develop drug problems also struggle with unresolved trauma. Rather than antagonists who want to take drugs away from them, counselors reposition themselves as problem-solving partners who help them overcome their co-occurring problems. Counselors empower youth to meet their needs in positive ways, which gives clients the opportunity to consider making changes and living well without depending on drugs.
The program was specifically designed for counseling adolescents and young adults. As young people think about and examine their lives, their drug use, and the potential impact of their drug use on their future, counselors help them master important developmental tasks: defining their own identity, learning systematic logical thinking, and preparing for adult roles.
The Seven Challenges was developed in the context of working with a racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse group of youth, both male and female. The program is not a set of pre-scripted, psycho-social modules — it requires counselors to respond to the specific needs of the client and their family with interpersonal awareness and awareness of diversity.
Clients learn how the world impacts them, so individual behavior is put in a social context. The Seven Challenges uses an empowerment model, moving away from a model that puts excessive blame on the individual, with a clear message to youth: You can do it. This message is often important for minority groups, struggling to overcome the negative social forces under which they may operate.
The Seven Challenges can be implemented in a wide array of counseling settings, including outpatient, intensive outpatient, residential treatment centers, schools, and juvenile justice facilities. Because the program allows for flexibility in the frequency and length of sessions, and integration with other counseling work, counselors have an opportunity to be creative while also matching the intensity of work with their client's severity of problems.
Seven Challenges sessions can be individual, group, or a combination of the two. Sessions incorporate work on drug issues, life skill deficits, and co-occurring issues — and the frequency of sessions is commensurate with the intensity of the problem. The program promotes openness in relationships, and thus trauma issues are often exposed. Skill building on trauma issues, such as safety, trust, boundaries, excessive self-blame, and identifying threats are incorporated into sessions.
Two studies funded by The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and published in peer-reviewed journals — one at the University of Iowa and one at the University of Arizona — provide evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of The Seven Challenges as a co-occurring program that significantly decreases the substance use of adolescents and greatly improves their overall mental health status. Data also show the program is especially effective with the large number of young people who have substance use issues as well as trauma issues.
Seven Challenges materials for counselors and clients — combined with supporting documents, effective training, and ongoing support from our team — have proven to be effective in replicating the successful outcomes noted in the research. To that end, the SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP) gave The Seven Challenges a perfect score for readiness for dissemination.