Dragonfly Introduces 21-Day Quests

Dragonfly Adventures is instituting a series of 21-Day Quests to help struggling young adults (Ages 18-25) re-evaluate their direction in life and get moving in a more positive direction. These Quests will be offered July, August and September 2008.

Over the past decade, DRAGONFLY has provided transitional care and wilderness treatment to young adults and their families in the majestic cascades of southern Oregon. Most of our young adult participants had fallen off the developmental curve, despite a strong potential for success.

Each year, our treatment team utilized a range of experiential and clinical treatment approaches to maximize the growth and change of our participants and their families. As participants began to demonstrate their potential for independence during and beyond treatment, our staff identified the experiential and clinical approaches that helped the best, and how additional clinical approaches can enhance our program.

We are now very pleased to announce our 21-Day Wilderness Program for struggling young adults, beginning in July, 2008! We feel our program is truly unique, as it provides a blend of psychological testing, experiential quests, and therapeutic activities aimed at facilitating growth, awareness, self-discovery, and change.

QUESTS

Each Dragonfly participant experiences innovate and challenging quests with their co-ed group - hiking through old growth forests, rock climbing alpine mountains, and rafting rivers. Each quest is designed to challenge the participant's primary coping strategy (e.g., avoidance, co-dependency, disorganization), while supporting alternative coping strategies (e.g., initiative, discovery, self-mastery).

The Dragonfly treatment team and peer feedback from nightly process groups will help reflect each participant's primary coping strategy and how it relates to their struggle with academics, work, and family. As positive coping strategies emerge, the treatment team will reinforce these choices and more importantly, process how these choices are supported by life principles of respect, team work, trust, and self-discipline.

SKILLS

In addition, our Dragonfly participants learn and apply a "skill" each day based on dialectical behavioral treatment, or DBT. DBT skill sets have been found to significantly improve the adjustment and functioning of individuals with emotional, behavioral, and substance abuse disorders.

Dragonfly participants will specifically learn how to attend to their world without judgment, accept and regulate intense emotions, relate effectively with others, and set and execute goals. We believe these skills are critical in helping young adults continue their treatment gains in everyday environments following treatment.

FAMILY SYSTEM

Finally, we're excited about providing weekly family therapy sessions in the field via satellite radio. Instead of waiting to address the family dynamics at the end of the trail, we believe it's important to address these issues during treatment.

Each Dragonfly family receives a family systems packet to complete while their son/daughter is enrolled in the 21-Day program. At the same time, the Dragonfly participant completes a similar packet in the field and this information is reviewed in tandem with the clinical psychologist each week.
As the family begins to identify their roles and rules and how these dynamics precipitate and perpetuating some of their family challenges, then they'll be in a better position to discover their talents and work together as a team during our end-of-trail, family reunification workshop.

Dragonfly Adventures is a wilderness oriented Adventure program located in southwest Oregon that provides wilderness trips for adolescents, young adults and families who struggle with healthy relationships, sustaining employment and managing daily affairs.