The SEVEN CHALLENGES Program
Rockdale County Public Schools will offer The Seven Challenges “short-term treatment program” for students who have a discipline code violation related to alcohol and/or drug use (RCPS Discipline Code of Conduct Rule 8) or students who have a discipline code violation related to tobacco (RCPS Discipline Code of Conduct Rule 20).  Students who have acknowledged alcohol, tobacco, or other drug use may attend, with parent permission, any of The Seven Challenges program sessions provided they complete and sign the Student/Parent Guidelines/Contract.  The Seven Challenges is an 8-hour course that must be attended by the student and his/her parents.  All parties must attend all eight hours to receive course credit.  

Where:  	EPIC Center, 2930 Highway 20NE Conyers, GA 30012
When:  	One session per month, One week per month. Monday-Thursday (Usually the 3rd Week of each month, unless it’s a Holiday) 5:30–7:30 p.m.
How: 	Contract with Viewpoint Health (formerly GRN) to provide licensed clinicians and certified Seven Challenges instructors.

About the Seven Challenges
Most young people do not seek drug treatment of their own free will. Most are dragged to counseling by their collars. By any definition, they are in the early stages of change. The Seven Challenges Program starts where youth "are at" (usually resistant and reluctant to change), not where adults wish they might be or where young people often pretend to be -- ready, willing, and prepared to succeed with immediate abstinence. 

Although the program strategy includes capturing any sincere impulse to quit, counselors avert power struggles and insincere commitments to change by striving for honesty and engagement instead of charging ahead with the "mad rush for abstinence." The Seven Challenges avoids the pitfall of teaching people to be drug free before they have honestly decided to be drug free. It also resists 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, the program harnesses the enormous power of education, finesse and respectful confrontation. The Seven Challenges takes the slow, but steady approach.

	
	We decided to open up and talk honestly about ourselves and about alcohol and other drugs.	
	
	We looked at what we liked about alcohol and other drugs, and why we were using them.	
	
	We looked at our use of alcohol or other drugs to see if it has caused harm or could cause harm.	
	
	We looked at our responsibility and the responsibility of others for our problems.	
	
	We thought about where we seemed to be headed, where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to accomplish.	
	
	We made thoughtful decisions about our lives and about our use of alcohol and other drugs.	
	
	We followed through on our decisions about our lives and drug use. If we saw problems, we went back to earlier challenges and mastered them. 
	
© Copyright Robert Schwebel, Ph.D