Ed. Note: The following is a KHTS Feature story based on a recent interview with Action Family Counseling.

ACTION Academy is an innovative educational program that offers a safe and sober school environment for Santa Clarita Valley students with substance use issues who are committed to living a clean and sober lifestyle.

Provided in partnership by Action Family Counseling, the William S. Hart Union High School District and KHTS AM-1220, ACTION Academy serves Hart District students in grades 7-12– free of charge –based on two primary components: academics and rehabilitation.

Action Family Counseling Founder Cary Quashen

“When kids decide they don’t want to use drugs, and they’ve been using them for awhile, everyone that they hang out with are kids just like themselves that used,” said Cary Quashen, founder of Action Family Counseling. “In order to pull them out of that extremely negative peer pressure, you put them in another room with the same kind of kids, but the peer pressure now is positive. They’re all supporting each other.”

A teacher from the Hart District acts as the educational facilitator for the program, offering University of California-approved and A-G courses with all grades and credits transferrable to the student’s home school. In addition, small class sizes with a low teacher/student ratio help provide the personal support students need during their recovery.

Related: CDC Reports Drug Overdose Deaths At All-Time High

Professional Action Family Counseling staff members also work with the students to provide drug counseling, process groups, drug education, daily reflection, relapse prevention, meditation and rehabilitation exercises like art classes, recreational field trips and group drumming.

“We’re one of the only ones where it’s drug and alcohol treatment partnered with the school district to do this, so that’s very exciting,” Quashen added. “A lot of kids coming out of treatment centers, you don’t want to throw them right back into their old triggers. So we would re-train their brain and get them back to hardwiring their old contracts they had when they were little not to use.”

Hart District students are usually referred to ACTION Academy by their treatment center, counselor, law enforcement agency, school district or parents, and the program is free of charge to all participating students.

The length of each student’s stay at ACTION Academy varies based on the student’s needs, and a transition plan is created for each student by Acton staff, the student and their parents/guardians before the attempt is made to transition the student back to their home school.

“We want them to get stronger so that when they’re in mainstream (school), they’ll be able to say no,” Quashen said. “We don’t want to keep kids in bubbles. We want to get kids strong enough to go back to mainstream school and graduate with their classmates… That’s our goal.”

KHTS Feature Story

Action Family Counseling is a Santa Clarita drug and alcohol rehab center. Action has drug and alcohol residential treatment locations in Santa Clarita, Piru and Bakersfield, as well as intensive drug and alcohol outpatient programs in Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Ventura, Pasadena and Bakersfield. Action Family Counseling supports and reinforces changes in behavior patterns so that adolescents and adults, or clients and their families, can fully indoctrinate the philosophies and principles needed to remain abstinent and stabilized for life.

Action Family Counseling

22722 Soledad Canyon Road

Santa Clarita, CA 91350

Office: 661-297-8691

24-Hour Helpline: 800-367-8336