Elements Wilderness Program
Huntington, UT

Happy New Year! We hope you enjoyed the holidays with family and friends. We'd like to start our year by reminding you of the great work Elements Wilderness Program is doing with young men and sharing some of our program developments during 2009.

Elements' continues to use The Seven Challenges program to address substance abuse issues that are common in the boys we treat. The Seven Challenges program is an evidenced based program specifically designed to work with adolescents at all levels of substance use. It is a decision making model that is ideal for helping adolescents successfully work through the early stages of change. The program facilitates honesty, builds motivation, and helps assess the need for ongoing substance abuse treatment. The Seven Challenges program also helps identify, assess and treat co-occurring problems that often drive substance use. Lastly, The Seven Challenges program offers a training model and simple frame work for our Field Mentors to facilitate. This ensures that effective substance abuse counseling is happening throughout the week. In 2010 Elements will continue to use The Seven Challenges program.

During 2009 we added Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skills training to the core curriculum of our clinical program. This addition is a natural fit to our program because it is designed to teach and facilitate the practice of skills that address many of the behaviors that lead our students into treatment. The four DBT skill sets; mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, are taught in skills training groups during the week and are reinforced in weekly individual therapy sessions. However, the most effective part of the skills training happens during "in the moment" coaching by our Field Mentors. Students experience many opportunities to practice the skills as they struggle to meet the challenges of living in a small group in the wilderness. This past year our clinical team attended several DBT trainings and in turn has spent many hours training our Field Mentors how to facilitate skills training groups and coach students' use of the skill sets. Similar to the Seven Challenges program, DBT provides a clear frame work for our Field Mentors to use and ensures that effective treatment is happening throughout the week.

We look forward to another busy year working with families and young men. If you have any questions or would like more information about either of these programs, please contact John Karren at 801-505-8481.