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"Enjoyed dealing with issues around student motivation..."
- Outdoor instructor, Hamilton

Training and Development Overview

Project Adventure NZ (PANZ) is managed by a team of associates Chris Jansen, Liz Penman and Claire Wyatt, and our training workshops are delivered by our network of trainers who have an extensive background in facilitation and training around New Zealand and overseas. PANZ specialises in the design and delivery of creative training solutions for professionals, education providers, service agencies, businesses and communities.

Project Adventure NZ (PANZ) works with a wide range of professionals implementing an average of 30 workshops around New Zealand each year. Approximate half of these were our scheduled workshops which are publicly advertised and designed to upskill professionals in therapeutic and educational settings. These include:

These workshops are recommended for professionals working in education, community and health settings, social services, justice, recreation, leisure, counsellors, outdoor educators, youth workers, human resource professionals, trainers, mental health staff, social workers, teachers, caregivers, tutors etc.

The other side of our work are the customised training workshops commissioned by specific organisations such as schools, polytechnics, private training establishments, outdoor centres, private companies, alternative education providers and community groups.
These workshops involve a detailed needs analysis and comprehensive design and delivery for individual staff teams in workplaces. Organisations have found these to be particularly useful as they are targeted and designed specifically for the learning needs and interests of their work setting and client group.

Our Training Flavour

Project Adventure NZ workshops are unique in that we model the experiential learning process in our delivery, ie: participants experience the concepts personally as well as discuss their application professionally - we seldom simply present material. Evaluations from participants constantly highlight the value of this in engaging them during the workshop and also making it easier for them to apply the new learning in their own settings afterwards.

As part of our workshops we also use a learning manual. These are customised for each training and provide background models and theories, toolkits of practical ideas that can be implemented immediately, and other articles and research relevant to the topics in the workshop. There is also space for participants to record their experiences on the workshop and set professional goals for implementing these ideas in their practice.

Our History/Background

PANZ has strong connections with Project Adventure Inc., an organisation spanning the globe since the early 1970’s when Project Adventure started at a high school in Massachusetts USA as an experiment to see if the Outward Bound process could be mainstreamed into a public school setting. Today, with over 100 people working for the international organisation that is still called Project Adventure, the work that started with a small group of high school students has been adapted in all areas of business, education, community development and therapy. Much work has been undertaken to research and develop programmes and materials that can be adopted and adapted for use anywhere in the world. Project Adventure is extremely well respected as an innovative teaching organization that provides leadership in the expansion of adventure-based experiential programming and as a publisher of numerous texts and research.

Project Adventure was introduced to New Zealand in 1990 when Project Adventure New Zealand Trust was formed and began to widely introduce the concepts and practice of Adventure Based Learning (A.B.L.). Over the next 10 years the Trust was largely successful in achieving their goal of having Adventure Based Learning used across a wide range of educational settings. In fact most tertiary educational training programmes around NZ now include some degree of training in the area of A.B.L. During this time PANZ was also involved in the construction, maintenance and staff training for challenge ropes courses all over the country.

During 2002, Project Adventure New Zealand Trust restructured the organisation to better reflect the diverse communities and client groups that they had been involved with. This resulted in the ropes course construction and maintenance been passed on to another organisation called PANZ Aotearoa while Project Adventure New Zealand: Training and Development specialised in publicly scheduled and customised professional development training workshops. By streamlining the organisation in this way it has allowed the two organisations to specialise in their areas of expertise and also to respond toclient needs more effectively. Since 2002 Project Adventure New Zealand: Training and Development has developed a reputation for its innovations in advanced facilitation training including therapeutic applications while continuing to provide NZ’s leading safety training on challenge ropes courses.

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Bag of Tricks Workshop (BOT) 1 day

This one day workshop has been designed in response to participants requests for an extended range of experiential activities and debriefing techniques. The day involves a 'quick-fire' tour through over 30 innovative new games as well as twists and variations on old favourites. Each participant will receive a copy of the Bag of Tricks resource booklet with detailed instructions for over 60 activities.

9am - 5pm, one-day, non-residential workshop
$125 incl GST

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Debriefing & Facilitation Skills (DFS) - 2 days

This workshop is designed for those who are using experiential and adventure based approaches in their work and are wanting to expand and develop their repertoire of techniques to process and debrief experiences enable participants to reflect on their experiences and to learn from them.

8.30am - 5pm , two-day, non-residential workshop
$250 incl GST
Content includes:

  • tools and strategies for groups who don’t have much to say
  • a tool bag of active debrief methods and models
  • selecting and sequencing debrief methods
  • facilitation focus topics and establishing facilitation flow
  • frontloading and the development of metaphors
  • using the experiential learning cycle to guide the facilitation of a debrief
  • skills for handling conflict and group dynamics to move the group on
  • an opportunity to participate in experiential activities and design effective debrief strategies
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Experiential Approaches with Challenging Adolescents (EACA)- 2 days

This two day workshop is our most popular workshop and is recommended for those who work with resilient young men and women who present a significant challenge to traditional techniques and practices. 

8.30am - 5pm , two-day, non-residential workshop
$250 incl GST
Content includes:

  • tools and strategies for engaging challenging adolescents, especially in group work settings
  • a review of current research into effective therapeutic approaches with these young people
  • a rationale for using experiential and adventure-based approaches with these groups and an overview of methods that can be used to integrate this approach within existing programmes.
  • case studies of programmes adopting experiential approaches including Project Adventure Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. (alternative education, substance abuse, and sexual offender treatment programmes) as well as a range of New Zealand based programmes.
  • an opportunity to participate in experiential activities framed to address therapeutic issues.
  • working with conflict and ‘funky’ group dynamics, and developing positive group culture – strategies to slowly move difficult and fractured groups towards positive and cohesive teams.
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Advanced Facilitation Skills (AFS) - 3 days

This is a professional skill development workshop for experienced facilitators of adventure based learning. It is run once per year, each year alternating between North and South Islands. This year will be based at the beautiful Marine Education Recreation Centre at Long Bay, Auckland.

8.30am - 5pm , three-day, non-residential workshop
$450 incl GST
Content includes:

  • appraisal from other professionals to enhance facilitation skills
  • The chance to extend both understanding and application of more sophisticated adventure based learning concepts
  • Self appraisal and short to medium term facilitation action planning
  • Understanding how learning theories can inform programme design and effective debriefing
  • Developing facilitation flow and navigating facilitation 'pot-holes'
  • The conscious choice of leadership styles to meet the needs of the group and its link to developing empowerment and positive group culture
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Safety Skills and Standards (SSAS)- 5 days

This workshop allows you to learn and practise the skills (setting up and facilitating activities and elements, rescues, group work skills) required to be a facilitator on any challenge ropes course in New Zealand. 

8.30am - 5pm , five-day, non-residential course
$600 incl GST
Content includes:

  • course set-up and take down procedures
  • presenting activities and risk management
  • use of associated equipment
  • belaying techniques
  • what if things go wrong?
  • gear retrievals
  • basic rescue techniques
  • presentation of recent technical advances.

This ropes course training is the bench mark for ropes course facilitation and as such is recognized on all ropes courses around New Zealand.