C.A.R.T. curriculum

CART: Creating a responsible thinker is a 6 session program designed for teens and their parents to help teens develop proactive, responsible thinking skills for creating healthy and dynamic lives. During the course of the 6 sessions, parents and teens meet in separate groups while learning the Life Puzzle model.

CART shows teens and their parents a practical, tangible method for creating healthy, dynamic lives based on learning how to be a proactive thinker instead of a reactive thinker. This is a learned skill that can be practiced by anyone. However teens, with their limited life experiences tend toward much more reactive, risky, quick-fix thinking which leads to behavior choices that often don’t work. It is easy for them to develop thinking patterns that produce less than optimal results without realizing the life-long impact this may have.

This curriculum challenges those patterns and empowers teens with a new way to approach life such that proactive, self-responsible is now possible.
Using the Life Puzzle® holistic model as the core foundation of each session, teens learn the steps one must master on the path to developing a healthy, whole and responsible SELF. In the other room, parents participate in learning the Life Puzzle model so they will be able to reinforce and support their teens at home in the family environment.

While there are many wonderful teen programs available, the unique aspect of CART is that it includes the parents. We did this because so many agencies shared with us their frustration of working diligently with teens only to have much of their work fall by the wayside because it wasn’t able to be reinforced at home.

For agencies who work with teen clients, the parent component has proved to be a huge benefit for everyone. After completing the CART program, parents report that the Life Puzzle model gives them a solid foundation to help them understand their teen and how to assist them in "putting their pieces together!"

Our research has shown that parents greatly enjoy and value their time participating in CART. As a result there is an improvement in family cohesion and parenting self-efficacy. Parents, teens and agency counselors report real changes after the 6 weeks sessions because parents now know how to reinforce what the agency has done with and for their teens. It is a win-win program for everyone concerned.

If you are interested in learning more about how your agency can become a certified CART facilitator agency, please contact us.