ABOUT RIGHT DECISIONS RIGHT NOW

Another one of the programs Ashley speaks at schools about is Right Decisions - Right Now, a program which helps students make good choices in their personal lives, with particular focus on the perils of smoking, underage drinking and drug use.

Everyday, we make up to 17,000 decisions. Some of them will be easy. Others will be more difficult. You make some decisions automatically - you don't stop and think about them before reacting. Others require lots of thinking. Both kinds involve a complicated mental process. Every time you make a decision, your mind goes through some version of the following steps:

1. Conflict - Why do you have to make a decision?
2. Goal - What do you want to happen?
3. Alternatives - What are your choices?
4. Consequences - What good or bad things can happen?
5. Decision - Making your choice.
6. Reflection - How do you feel about your choice?

Topics include the differences between peer pressure and peer influence and how both can affect young people’s lives, realizing consequences, taking personal responsibility and identifying values.