Challenge Adventures is a 501(c)(3) organization. We provide therapy using wilderness and animal assisted journeys for young people eight through 16 as a part of the treatment plan of other practices. Most trips take place on the Pisgah District of the Pisgah National Forest and its Congressionally mandated Wilderness Areas. Our offices are located in Columbia, SC and near Waynesville, NC.

Our Goal

Our goal is to provide to treatment practices a professional short-term animal assisted and wilderness therapy experience that furthers the treatment plans of their clients.

Our Philosophy

Challenge Adventures follows a strength-based, solution-focused approach to therapy and personal change. In addition to individual goals, the general goals for participants are to address calming the nervous system, building competency, developing adaptive coping and promoting emotional regulation. The wilderness journey is a metaphor for the person’s journey through life. The relationship of the participants to the llamas provides a metaphor for their relationship with other humans. The therapists use these metaphors to help participants learn behavior and social relationships that are more productive than current patterns and to expand their view of what they can accomplish in life.

Our Theoretical Base

• Person-in-Environment Theory
• Social Learning Theory
• Humanistic Psychotherapy
• Brief Psychotherapy
• Systemic Psychotherapy
• Body Psychotherapy
• Attachment Theory

Our Wilderness Method

The specific approaches that CA uses to accomplish these therapeutic goals are:

• the journey through the remote Wilderness Areas which provides isolation from the rest of life and a chance to rescript one’s story;
• low key, continuous guidance from licensed therapists, which assures personal, internal safety without too close an involvement;
• and the relationship between each child and his or her llama, which allows for a non-threatening attachment bond which the therapists can then use to bridge to a human to human relationship.

This experience all occurs within the context of a treatment plan developed by the practice which the child comes from and returns to and which incorporates the CA wilderness journey method at the right moment.

The CA program is a unique model of short-term wilderness therapy and animal-assisted therapy that fits within the continuum of services for children and youth.

Contact us for more information by email at info@challengeadventures.org or call 803-771-6663.